We want to get to know you more to help improve our service. Please take 2 minutes to fill out our survey here. Thank you! test2

This film is part of Free

Title of error

See Help

Merry Moments in France

Lively Gallic goings on in an early film sound experiment

1907 3 mins Silent

Overview

This petit morceau of ooh-la-la seems to be a recreation of part of a stage play in the French farce style. It's likely that it was originally accompanied by a recorded soundtrack on disc - making it a relatively early example of its type if it really is 1907 - though sadly there's no known trace of any actual disc. Still, what survives has the flavour of louche Gallic carryings-on (at least as the more inhibited Edwardian Brits might have imagined it), even if the dancing isn't quite the Folies-Bergere...

The film is credited to Mr E Seal Donisthorpe - presumably Edmund, son of Wordsworth Seal Donisthorpe, one of many late 19th century inventors in the race to make photographs move. Edmund seems to have spent the early 1900s working on stereoscopic filming, sound synchronisation and other processes intended to improve film realism. Around 1910 he and his father unveiled the 'Kinesigraph', a 'perfect' sound-film disc synchroniser, "mechanical in operation... a marvel of ingenuity which can be managed by the veriest novice". Alas, the Kinesigraph hardly merits a footnote in the story of the development of film sound.

Country

United Kingdom

Language

No Dialogue with English subtitles

Subjects

Music

Watch for free

A Woman Undressing A Woman Undressing

Pornography 1896 1 mins Silent

A treat for Victorian voyeurs - and Britain's oldest erotic film?

Watch for free

Dream Doll Dream Doll

Animation & Artists Moving Image 1979 12 mins Silent

A relationship liable to blow up at any moment is at the heart of this animated short about a man and an inflatable sex doll

Watch for free

Moment Moment

Animation & Artists Moving Image 1969 12 mins

An intimate, unusual encounter with the progressive narrative of orgasm.

Currently unavailable

The Sex Victims The Sex Victims

Horror 1973 37 mins

A truck driver thinks he’s in luck when he meets a strange girl by the road in this supernatural horror short

Watch for free

Beauty in Brief Beauty in Brief

Drama 1955 4 mins Silent Location: London

A young bride-to-be models a modish nylon nightie before a voyeuristic camera in this silent 1950s striptease film.

Watch for free

Xcitement! Xcitement!

Pornography 1960 5 mins Silent

Glamour goddess Pamela Green reveals all in a key ‘60s striptease collaboration with George Harrison Marks.

Watch for free

All We Imagine As Light - Exclusive Q&A All We Imagine As Light - Exclusive Q&A

Short interview 2025 28 mins

Payal Kapadia discusses her Cannes prize-winning and Bafta-nominated drama with Ashanti Omkar.

Watch for free

Khichdi Khichdi

Animation & Artists Moving Image 2023 16 mins

The interwoven stories of four best friends who reunite in the UK, thirty-five years after training together as nurses during their teens in Ferozepur, Punjab.