The Big Swallow (1901)
- Directed by
- James Williamson
- Genre
- comedy film, silent film
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Runtime
- 1 min
- Rating
- 6.5 of 10 from 138 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
A man gets annoyed by a photographer and ends up swallowing him along with his camera. This early silent comedy uses clever camera tricks to make the action happen on screen.
humorousplayfulinventivebriefcheekywhimsicalsilenttrick-filled
What happens
The Big Swallow (AKA: A Photographic Contortion) is a 1901 British silent comic trick film, directed by James Williamson, featuring a man, irritated by the presence of a photographer, who solves his dilemma by swallowing him and his camera whole. The three-shot trick film is, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "one of the most important early British films in that it was one of the first to deliberately exploit the contrast between the eye of the camera and of the audience watching the final film". The "tricks" used to produce the film were described in detail in Frederick A. Talbot's 1912 book Moving Pictures: How They Are Made and Worked. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
The Countryman and the Cinematograph (1901)
Running a Cinema (1921)
Tit for Tat (1921)
Handy Andy (1921)
The Hand of the Artist (1906)
Interior of a Railway Carriage - Bank Holiday (1901)
The Glutton's Nightmare (1901)
The Rotters (1921)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.