The Origins of film: origins of American animation: origins of the fantasy feature

Volume two of a three disc anthology of restored early silent American films (1900-1926) from archival prints held in the Library of Congress’s Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. This volume contains 21 complete classic animated shorts and two fragments of animations produced between 1900 and 1921, and two feature length fantasy films. The animators featured include J. Stuart Blackton, Harry S. Palmer, Wallace Carlson, Earl Hurd, Leon Searl, Frank Moser, Raoul Barre, Howard S. Moss, Willis O’Brien, Charles Bowers, Gregory La Cava, Winsor McCay and Tony Sarg. “The Patchwork girl of Oz”: twenty-five years before the MGM/Judy Garland “Wizard of Oz”, writer L. Frank Baum produced this film based on one of his fourteen Oz novels. “A Florida enchantment” is an unusual gender-bending comedy of manners about a woman who discovers magic seeds that transform women into men and vice versa without altering their outward appearance.