A house smolders. Three mountain men come and remove bodies from the wreckage, then look at something offscreen.
At two minutes in length - assuming it was shown at the right speed - this is a substantial, although not very informative short for the year of its release; not much happens. If the IMDb is correct, and this was one of a three-part movie, THE PIONEERS, then.... well, it's still not much of anything. Over at Edison, they were producing THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, with a tremendous number of incidents in its 11 minutes. This one drags by comparison.
True, it was 1903, and no one was quite sure what to do with a movie like this, when the standard was one-minute actualities. Even so, it drags.
At two minutes in length - assuming it was shown at the right speed - this is a substantial, although not very informative short for the year of its release; not much happens. If the IMDb is correct, and this was one of a three-part movie, THE PIONEERS, then.... well, it's still not much of anything. Over at Edison, they were producing THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, with a tremendous number of incidents in its 11 minutes. This one drags by comparison.
True, it was 1903, and no one was quite sure what to do with a movie like this, when the standard was one-minute actualities. Even so, it drags.