DVD about the origins of the cinema. Dogs playing the piano, contortionists defying the pain limits, and local news "in life size and movement" early fairground cinema was a great attraction and sensation. Besides the ...展开variety theatres, it were particularly the travelling cinemas which contributed to the rapid establishment of the cinematograph as a popular medium. With the tongue-in-cheek title, similar to a barkers's yell, "Crazy Cinématographe", this double DVD reveals the buried tradition of annual market cinema. Hand-coloured serpentine dances, erotic piquancies and local street scenes evoke the colourful diversity of early short-film programmes. The DVD "European Cinema of Attractions 1896 1916" shows, in a varied sequence, rarities from the treasure chests of the European film archives ranging from Danish anarchistic slapstick to Scottish X-ray films and a Belgium film showing a hunt. The DVD "Local Films from the Greater Region 1902-1914" presents a forgotten film genre which was, in its day, a real crowd puller in travelling cinema. This DVD features films, including from the Marzen family, from Luxembourg, Trier and Saarbrücken which depict the local people who would then pay to see themselves in "living portraits" on the big screen.