Die Freuden der Reserveübung
R: Charles Decroix. B: Charles Decroix. D: Richard Eichberg, Claire Praetz. P: Films Charles Decroix (Berlin). D 1913
Print: EYE film (Desmet collection)
Dutch intertitles and inserts

The director Charles Decroix belonged to the European film pioneers whose career began in France with movies like Pédicure par amour (1908), Une conquête (1909) with the legendary Max Linder, and Les paysans (1909). From 1910 Decroix started a successful career in Germany as director both in Germany and France. After the outbreak of World War I his career in Germany ended abruptly. He left Germany and went to Switzerland where he remained till to the end of the war. After the war Decroix tried to continue his career in his home country, but because of his active career in Germany before 1914 he failed to gain a foothold in the French film business again. So he returned to Germany where he realised two more movies as a co-director together with Heinrich Bolten-Baeckers.
(Based on IMDb)

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The Detective’s Dog
R: Alice Guy. D: Darwin Karr, Blanche Cornwall, Magda Foy, Lee Beggs. P: Solax Film Company. USA 1912
Print: Library of Congress / National Audio-Visual Conservation Center

“The idea of the detective and dog duo – with the animal as the human’s partner or (…) essentially taking over the role of the main investigator – had already been seen several times, as in Pathé’s Les chiens policiers by Lucien Nonguet (1907) or The Detective’s Dog by Alice Guy-Blaché (1912) from her own Solax Studios which she had founded herself. These films were part of a wider trend of ‘canine cinema’, in which the animal hero usually turned out to be smarter and more effective than people. This trend had its own stars, including a collie named Rover, known from the pictures by Cecil M. Hepworth, or Jean, another collie, from the Vitagraph studio. Spot – the only member of the cast of A Canine Sherlock Holmes (Charles Urban Trading Company, UK 1912) to be credited by name – was another such star, being the mascot of the studio and featuring in commercials.”
FINA / ILUZJON CINEMA

Les chiens policiers
R: Lucien Nonguet. P: Pathé frères. Fr 1907
Engl. subtitles

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