A Brilliant Conflict

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Robert Paul is a largely forgotten name today, but he was a major pioneer of British cinema, and was quick to grasp the commercial potential of cinema in ways that better known pioneers such as William Friese-Greene were not. He was more of a mechanic than a filmmaker making, with Birt Acres, his own camera on which to shoot films in 1895, and also Britain's first projector, the Animatograph, with which to screen them in 1896. Early in the 20th century he had a custom-made studio built in Muswell Hill.Only a fragment of this film is known to survive today, which is a shame because these two guys from Hamilton, Ohio are really pretty good. They jump in and out of barrels, which doesn't sound particularly impressive to be sure, but their performance looks a whole lot better than it sounds.