Komisches Reck

Themes

• A comic bar act
• One loop in a variety bill
• A Berlin music-hall projection
• Milton brothers
• horizontal bar
• Wintergarten
• Bioscop
• Skladanowsky

Background

The November 1, 1895 Wintergarten show was a paid projection of moving pictures in Berlin, a month before the Lumière program in Paris.

Making

The brothers shot variety acts in Berlin in May 1895, including work at the Feldschlösschen in Pankow, in front of the Circus Busch, and in the Stadtstheater garden, then projected them with their Bioscop.

Look

Max Skladanowsky photographed the Milton brothers on the bar for the Bioscop, which ran the short loops repeatedly.

Music

No music is on the film. At the Wintergarten a live band accompanied the program.

Preservation

The Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv restored the Wintergarten numbers in 1995 with the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek. A copy of Komisches Reck is on Wikimedia Commons.

Notes

• The Wintergarten bill also included an Italian peasant dance by the Ploetz-Larella children, Mister Delaware boxing a kangaroo, juggler Paul Petras, the Grunato family's acrobatics, the Tscherpanoff brothers' Kamarinskaja, Mademoiselle Ancion's serpentine dance, a wrestling match with Greiner and Sandow, and a bow by the Skladanowsky brothers.
• A live orchestra played pieces from Johann Strauss to John Philip Sousa under the films.
• Max Skladanowsky applied the title Wintergartenprogramm to the compilation later. From the 1950s, various assemblies circulated under that name.
• In 1995 the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, with the Stiftung Deutsche Kinemathek, restored the separate numbers and issued them as Das Wintergartenprogramm der Gebrüder Skladanowsky.

Scenes

• The Milton brothers clown on the horizontal bar.

Also available

• Wikimedia Commons (Komisches Reck.webm)