Thimble Theater

So This Is Love

February 1928 •English

So This is Love? was another early Frank Capra production for fledgling Columbia Pictures. The hero, dress designer Jerry McGuire (William Collier Jr.), is tired of being considered a wimp. After business hours, Jerry secretly takes boxing lessons, enabling him to knock the stuffings out of his burly rival Spike Mullins (Johnnie Walker). Jerry's newfound pugilistic skills wins him the affections of store clerk Hilda Jensen (Shirley Mason), who's just car-razy about "cave men." Filmed in a fast three weeks, So This is Love? was completed before Frank Capra's Matinee Idol but released afterward. Leading lady Shirley Mason was the sister of Viola Dana, who starred in Capra's initial Columbia effort, That Certain Thing.

The Rink

December 1916 •English

After amusements working in a restaurant, a waiter uses his lunch break to go roller skating.

The Pawnshop

October 1916 •English

A pawnbroker's assistant deals with his grumpy boss, his annoying co-worker and some eccentric customers as he flirts with the pawnbroker's daughter, until a perfidious crook with bad intentions arrives at the pawnshop.

Sherlock Jr.

April 1924 •English

A film projectionist longs to be a detective, and puts his meagre skills to work when he is framed by a rival for stealing his girlfriend's father's pocketwatch.

L'Âge d'or

November 1930 •French

The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

September 1927 •German

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

Hey, Taxi!

April 1925 •

Seven Sinners

November 1925 •

Six burglars separately break into the Vickers mansion on Long Island to loot the safe but catch each other in the act. They all pretend to be members of the household when locked in by a well meaning police officer.

The Kid

January 1921 •English

A tramp cares for a boy after he's abandoned as a newborn by his mother. Later the mother has a change of heart and aches to be reunited with her son.

The Triplets of Belleville

June 2003 •French

When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters—an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire—to rescue him.

When Winter Comes

April 1924 •English

When snow comes, winter sports are back and all the animals rush to the frozen lake.

City Lights

February 1931 •English

A tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind flower girl. His on-and-off friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be the girl's benefactor and suitor.

The General

December 1926 •English

During America’s Civil War, Union spies steal engineer Johnny Gray's beloved locomotive, 'The General'—with Johnnie's lady love aboard an attached boxcar—and he single-handedly must do all in his power to both get The General back and to rescue Annabelle.

The Gold Rush

July 1925 •English

A gold prospector in Alaska struggles to survive the elements and win the heart of a dance hall girl.

Modern Times

February 1936 •English

A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time..

The Vanished World of Gloves

January 1982 •Czech

Using an array of gloves in different styles and from different historical periods, the film is a short history of the cinema - from silent movies via pastiches of Buñuel and Fellini and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to a futurist junkyard where tin cans become animated police cars in a city of urban decay.

The Impossible Voyage

November 1904 •French

Using every known means of transportation, several savants from the Geographic Society undertake a journey through the Alps to the Sun which finishes under the sea.

Where Was I?

August 1925 •English

A young man gets engaged to a business competitor's daughter.

The Cheerful Fraud

December 1926 •English

A young man fakes his identity to impress a girl.

The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk

September 2007 •English

Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies.