How Jones Lost His Roll
About How Jones Lost His Roll
Jones, carrying a roll of money, meets his neighbor Skinflint. Skinflint asks him to dinner and pours cheap wine, then suggests cards. Before the game, Skinflint's wife and her maid set a mirror behind Jones's chair. Husband and wife read his hand in the glass and pass cards under the table. Jones loses every hand, then his suit. He leaves in his underclothes with a barrel on him.
Cast & crew
More about How Jones Lost His Roll
Edwin S. Porter directed and photographed the short for Edison. It runs 7 minutes. The intertitles are stop-motion: a scramble of letters settles into each caption, and one title forms a spiral. Porter cranked the camera a frame at a time.
Themes
Look
Porter shot the card game and the single-frame titles himself.
Technique
The titles were made by exposing one frame at a time so loose letters could move into words.
Preservation
A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- One title resolves into the line He proposed a friendly game of cards.
- Wikipedia calls the titles the earliest known stop-motion animation in an American film.
- A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Scenes
- Letters tumble across the screen and settle into the card-game title.
- Jones walks off in a barrel after the Skinflints take the last hand.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (How Jones Lost His Roll)
