Showtimes
Wednesday, June 4
7:30pm – Reception
8:00pm – Shorts Program
Ticketing
$15 /General Admission
$5 /Students
You will never guess what you will see when you peer through the keyhole of early cinema!
From same-sex couples dancing in each other’s arms to gender-inverted worlds where mannish women go out drinking while their feminine husbands stay home with the baby, these short films exuberantly present the gender and sexual chaos of cinema’s first years.
Meet lesbian comedian Fay Tincher, who lived openly with her female partner in Hollywood. She plays a rowdy cowgirl who gets sent to an all-girls school! And Gilbert Sarony—a famous female impersonator from Broadway—manages to land her man after a rowdy chase! See an unknown dancer imitate the famous “butterfly dance” of Loie Fuller, who has been called the “lesbian electric fairy of the belle epoque,” and the impressive physique of Sandow, the early 20th century’s most famous muscleman. We end with a sci-fi film set “one hundred years from now” when “men have become like women and women like men”—except the women look suspiciously like stylish lesbians from the 1920s—and a flapper comedy in which a secret society initiation goes hilariously wrong.
FEATURED SPEAKER
Curator of The First Homosexuals Film Series, Laura Horak. Laura Horak is Professor of Film Studies at Carleton University and director of the Transgender Media Lab and Transgender Media Portal.
LIVE MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT
David Drazin has been playing the piano professionally for over 40 decades. With a special talent for accompanying silent films, David was a guest accompanist in 2003, 2004 and 2006 at the Pordenone, Italy Silent Film Festival. David currently records piano accompaniments to silent films for several DVD producers and Grapevine Video.
FILMS
What is Seen Through a Keyhole (Par le trou de la serrure) (France, 1901, 2 min.)
- A hotel porter spies through three keyholes in his hotel, only to see something he wasn’t expecting! [Note: it’s a cross-dresser disrobing]
Sandow (US, 1894, 22 sec.)
- A well-endowed white man flexes his muscles.
Annabelle Butterfly Dance (US, 1894, 19 sec.)
- An imitator of, Loie Fuller, the “lesbian electric fairy of the belle epoque.” With hand coloring.
Dickson Experimental Sound Film (US, 1894-95, 16 sec.)
- Two men dance in each other’s arms while a third plays violin to test out Edison’s sound-on-cylinder synchronized sound system.
Dancing at the Bivouac (Danse au bivouac) (France, 1896, 1 min.)
- Soldiers in Madrid dance in each other’s arms in this early Lumiere film.
Dances Through the Ages (Skilda tiders danser) (Sweden, 1909, 3 min.)
- Two women dance the Boston waltz together.
The Consequences of Feminism (Les Résultats du féminisme) (France, 1906, 7 min.)
- A world where women go to bars and pick up innocent men, while the menfolk stay at home cooking and cleaning. The horror! Directed by Alice Guy-Blaché.
Meet Me at the Fountain (US, 1904, 5 min.)
- A man gets chased around town by a rabid bunch of suitoresses; but it’s famed female impersonator Gilbert Sarony who wins his hand.
Pranks (US, 1909, 5 min.)
- An estranged couple is forced to cross-dress when two boys play a prank on them. But even more interesting is the gay couple they run by, who is lounging on picnic blanket in the park together. Perhaps one of the first surviving film representations of a gay couple!
A Range Romance (US, 1911, 12 min.)
- Romance between two cowboys on the range. At the last minute, one discovers that the other is a girl in disguise. (The Brokeback Mountain of the silent era!)
Algie, the Miner (US, 1912, 10 min.)
- A sissy boy goes West to become a man. He is impressed with his roommate’s large firearm, and they become the best of friends. Directed by Alice Guy-Blaché.
Rowdy Ann (US, 1919, 24 min.)
- Lesbian comedian Fay Tincher plays a rowdy cowgirl who is sent to an all-girls school to become a lady. You can imagine how this goes!
What’s the World Coming To? (US, 1926, 22 min.)
- Set “one hundred years from now” when men have become like women and men like men. Except these women look suspiciously like stylish lesbians from the 1920s, like Jane Heap and Radclyffe Hall.
She’s a Prince (US, 1926, 27 min.)
- A flapper undergoes the initiation for a secret society, gets mistaken for a visiting prince, and ends up caught in more gender and sexual play than expected!
Total runtime: 119 minutes + Intermission
