Online What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City Movies | Free What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City Full Movie (What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City Synopsis)

What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City

| 31 July 1901 (USA)

A street level view from the sidewalk, looking along the length of 23rd Street. Following actuality footage of pedestrians and street traffic, the actors, a man in summer attire and a woman in an ankle-length dress, walk toward the camera.

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

cricket crockett Yesterday I compared Edison's 1902 rendering of JACK AND THE BEANSTALK versus the entertaining new release, JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (2013), which I had seen as a double feature the day before. The gist of knowing your Jacks was that the Edison short is morally reprehensible, while the remake teaches solid American values. When you compare notorious elephant-electrocuter Thomas Edison's WHAT HAPPENED . . . to Marilyn Monroe's 1955 remake, THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH, the EXACT SAME THING is seen. Edison's henchmen have produced something akin to kiddie porn, positioning what should be an innocent young lad of 8 or 12 as the focal point for the first 69 seconds of the 82-second offering. The corrupted boy is leering and drooling uncontrollably as the rest of the many people on the sidewalk go about their business (the Edison perverts no doubt ran the youngster through 30 or 40 takes). When it comes time for the big reveal of the unsuspecting stranger lady's unmentionables, the innocent's face contorts with an expression which should have been delayed until his honeymoon. Monroe in ITCH, on the other hand, is thrown into a trying position with another consenting adult, and the New York subway does its level best to tip the pair over the line into outright adultery. However, since Edison was not around to corrupt this pair as children when their moral fibers were woven together, the summer neighbors resist their virtually undeniable attraction despite the subway's up-blown skirting, with proper decorum and marriage vows intact at the end.

kobe1413 Here we have a short directed by Edwin S. Porter. In it a young couple steadily walks toward the camera from the background. When the two are almost directly in front of the camera, we have the payoff. The woman's skirt is blown up-around her ankles, revealing the undergarment around her calves. A very poor film, even for the standards of 1901. It takes too long for any things remotely interesting happens in the film. The cameraman has to shue several passersby out of the way, and a young boy stands in the background, watching the entire thing unfold. When one first watches the film, the viewer doesn't even know what we are watching, a slice of life shot or a planned performance.I give it a 3 out of 10. The guys were cranking them out as fast as possible, but you would think they could have done better than this.

zpzjones Of all the short films in the four disc Edison/Kino set this is the one I liked the best. And it's amazing it's from 1901. The majority of the films from the historic Edison Co. survived only in a paper print form. That is each frame of a particular film was printed on photographic paper and deposited in the LOC(Library of Congress). It's a very good fortune that these films were randomly deposited in this manner else they might have stayed lost forever. The paper prints, fortunately, were one or two steps away from the clarity of the camera negative, thus the pictorial quality on some of these early gems is quite clear as opposed to the murky/muddy quality we're used to seeing on films of this very early vintage.WHAT HAPPENED ON 23RD STREET, is valuable as it documents a section of New York City that could probably be matched up today to the very point where the cameraman was filming. This film also has fun at tempting the sexual attitudes of it's time. Looking at it today you basically see people going about their daily affairs, though one can't help wondering if a taping measure or mark-off point has been told to the people to stay away & not look at the camera. Anyhow no one looks at the camera nor gets near it until the close of the film. Then the 'starring' couple walks up and the young woman in long skirt walks over an air duct and parts of her skirt fly up just above the knees. The lady and her male friend get a kick out of this but they would've understood the moral implications of this. They walk off laughing trying to play it off that she didn't know that there was an air grate on the sidewalk and that her dress would rise high up to her head.It's hard for us today to believe that this was being risqué. But there was a time in America that if a woman showed her legs in public it could throw men into a frenzy. And no doubt many a man enjoyed this flick for the sexually stimulating experience of seeing her skirt go up and viewing her legs. Another thing is that this film must have been available in some kind of form in the 1950s since the same type of scene is virtually aped by Marilyn Monroe in the movie The Seven Year Itch. But to less effect if you ask me.

Snow Leopard This miniature feature works well enough in carrying off a rather amusing premise, and it also would have been worth seeing just for the photography. Besides successfully executing a simple but effective visual punch-line, it also provides some interesting footage of the New York City of over a century ago.The film starts out as if it were one of the actualities, or footage of real life shot for its own sake, that were common in the earliest years of cinema. And even as such it would be worth seeing. The camera field is set up effectively, so as to catch a view of a rather lengthy stretch of 23rd Street, with some of the street traffic, a lot of action on the sidewalk, and a good view of many of the surrounding buildings. Like many of the features that survive from this era, it is invaluable in conveying the atmosphere of the times, in a way that no recreation today can match.The actual highlight of "What Happened on 23rd Street", while hardly requiring great imagination or sophistication, is funny enough, and the two performers who carry it off seem to have enjoyed doing so. The commentary on the National Film Preservation Foundation video also gives some background to the simple but no doubt popular gag.