The First Sleigh-Ride (1897) Online

This very brief movie simply provides a picture of a lighter moment in the aftermath of a snowstorm in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The technique is not notable in itself, aside from providing one of many examples of the kinds of material with which the earliest film-makers experimented. This is supposed to have been one of a number of movies shot at about the same time and place, covering similar material.

The camera captures a view along a city street, from the diagonal perspective that is so familiar in movies made in the 1890s. The main point of it is to capture first the routine activity along the street, and then a light-hearted competition between a couple of sleigh drivers. The movie does not go on long enough to be really interesting, but it does all right in preserving the moment.

When I played tenor sax for the Marching Armadillos, we performed the X-Mas Sweet during halftime in the game against Abilene Crockett my senior year. The sweet included about a 20-second excerpt from the famous "Sleigh Ride" song, which ends with Dean--I mean, the first trumpet--going "Knee-hah-ha-hah-ha-HAH" into his horn like a real horse. Well, as I watched this 18.63-second short four times, that music came into my head and I realized that this footage fits the climax of that musical sleigh ride almost to a T, right down to the winning horse on the opposite side of the street from the pictured spectators glancing over his shoulder to the vanquished nag to the left and letting out with a triumphant nay that you can practically hear coming through the silent camera across the span of three centuries. So if you want to enjoy this flick to the fullest, have the closing seconds of "Sleigh Ride" playing in the background as you view it!

First Sleigh-Ride, The (1897)

This Edison short, filmed in Pennsylvania, was shot just after a snowfall where several people are now walking through the snow-covered streets. They all must get out of the way as a couple horses are apparently racing on the ice. There's certainly not much going on here and there's no "entertainment" to be had like we'd get from a movie made today but fans of early cinema will like this one. We get quite a bit to look at in terms of the people walking around and it's always interesting to see the clothing people wore at the time. You'll notice a couple kids are fighting as well. The film doesn't run long enough to do much except just show a moment in time forgotten by most.

I hoped for a small kid cruising down a snowy hill during the first day of winter and shouting and screaming with delight with its parents standing nearby and smiling while watching their kid experience such joy. Unfortunately, that's not what this film is about. Not at all. It's 25 seconds of a couple horses dragging a carriage through the snow. I wonder what was so special about this occurrence as there's quite a quantity of people standing near the road and they're not waiting to cross the street, but indeed watching the action. When the next carriage arrive they move a step back to not get hit. I wasn't remotely wowed by this short film. Silent movie pioneer James H. White has far more interesting works in his gigantic filmography.