Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Please don't spend money on this.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

This early Edison short was probably very entertaining at the time of its release, as instead of a simple performance of a dancer or an athlete performing we get a rather comic scene showing a guy getting shaved. While not at all impressive today (many people now will just think "a guy getting a shave--so what?") it is interesting as it is a form of early advertising.While many people think the later Edison film "Dewars-It's Scotch" is the first true advertising film (so did I for a while), I believe this is truly the first. This is because at the time a shave and a haircut was very popular and was the most recent fad. People could get both for a nickel. So Edison, who wants to cash in on money, decides to advertise this new great wonder by making a short film about it. And not only does this film advertise, it also amuses--and isn't that what we do to grab people's attention today? It is indeed. "Dewars-It's Scotch" doesn't do that. It is an advertising film, but it doesn't really amuse, it just outright says "Buy it, buy it, BUY IT! Thanks for watching." The advertising in it is pretty clear--there's a sign and everything. And the scene does amuse somewhat. I'll bet you after seeing this the men in the audiences were like "Whoa, that's too great a deal to pass up! To the barbershop!" While it's easy to see it was made in a studio, the idea is still there. And today I suppose you could call it more interesting than seeing a baby being fed. Entertaining but more interesting for the fact that it is an unrecognized advertising film--and maybe the first.(Note: On Kino's "Movies Begin" set the film is played twice in a row for some reason. I had no idea until I read the review by someguy. It's only twenty secs though so it's still no waste of time).

Blacksmith Scene (1893) Barber Shop, The (1893) These two Edison shorts are more "film like" than previous items from the studio, which were pretty much just camera tests. In the first film we see three men hammering some iron before taking a break and passing a beer around. The second short has three men sitting around a barber shop with one of them receiving a shave. Once again these two are basically going to be for those wanting to see early examples of history so coming to either one of these films for entertainment, as we use the word today, would be quite useless. I find watching these other films to be quite entertaining because of anything Edison could have filmed, they thought audiences would want to see this.

The Barbershop is another short that I saw on the Landmarks of Early Film DVD. A guy walks up to a barbershop, a man is getting shaved, and another man is there reading the newspaper. The newspaper reading man says something to the waiting man and they both start laughing. Then the shave is done. It lasts about 20 seconds. Then the whole scene is repeated again! The exact same scene. It took me a few seconds to realize that I was watching the same thing twice. Although this short doesn't have the amazing insight and stuff of the Lumiere shorts, and seems much more planned and acted, and the insight into the life in only the most narrow of forms, I thought it was a delightful little short, pointing out the hilarious repititions of every day life. My grade: 7/10

Yes those were the days when you could get a shave and a haircut for a nickel (according to the sign behind the barber). This barber shop is on the stage in the Black Maria studio - so called because, to some people, the weird design of this building made them think of a horse-drawn police paddy-wagon that was called a "Black Maria" - at the Edison laboratory. The barber is working on a customer while a man sits screen-right. Another customer enters and sits in a vacant chair screen-left. The man-on-the-right gets up and briefly shows the man-on-the-left something in the newspaper he is holding. All this takes about 20-seconds. Then for some unknown reason, the entire scene is shown over again to produce a 40-second Kinetoscope presentation.