Thanks to a user who posted the link in the message board section of this short film, I got to watch another early film from the Skladanowsky brothers, but I realized quickly, I may have seen most of it already as it's compiled of several other very short films. So "Wintergartenprogramm" is a collection of snippets and runs for 5.5 minutes including a long introduction in writing. There's some segments I liked more (the serpentine dancer, the final snippet with the Skladanowskys) and some I liked less (the wrestler), but it's nice to have it put all together in one. All in all it's an okay watch if you've already seen and liked some short silent movies. The brothers have kind of vanished into oblivion by now. Even here in Germany they're not known at all anymore which is a bit of a pity as most people don't even know Méliès and when it goes deeper into the matter, hardly anybody will know there were also a couple silent film pioneers from Germany.
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Horst_In_Translation12 October 2013
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Wintergartenprogramm (1895), is considered one of the exceptions to the claim, that the Lumière Brothers, may have been the first inventors/filmmakers, to reach the starting line of the box office, first, in 1895. Max Skladanowsky and his brother Emil, using their Bioscope projector (which did go up onto a screen), was shown to a paying audience on November 1st, 1895. That timeline beats the Lumière brothers by almost two months. This film is a collection of other short films, running about 25 seconds each, that were eventually edited together into a four and a half minute film, that received theatrical distribution all over the world, in the years following 1895.
You should definitely watch Wintergartenprogramm (1895), by itself, instead of trying to hunt down all the individual movies by themselves. They are all here in a presentation that actually fits a better description of what a motion picture really is. It also was the intended desire by Skladanowsky to collect them together anyway. I would also try and find a version that has music or play your own music. I found this film on YouTube and chose to watch a black and white version. They also have a version that is tinted orange. Of course, I am going to give this film a 10. What else would you give one of the first movies ever made?
9.7 (A+ MyGrade) = 10 IMDB.