Such one-minute sketch films were most certainly not the norm by 1905. Following such films as Zecca's Histore d'une crime (1901), Méliès' Voyage à la lune (1902) and Robinson Crusoé (now known to survive in its full fifteen-minute version) (1903), Porter's The Great Train Robbery and Life of An American Fireman (both 1903) and McCutcheon's Personal (1903), The Moonshiners (1904) and The Nihilists (1905), Alberini's La Presa di Roma (1905) and Capellani's La Poule aux oeufs d'or (1905), it was now reasonably oommon to make at least two-shot and three-shot films and they could run anything up to fifteen minutes. Not long to us but a very marked advance at the time.
The 1905 date is a copyright date and Mutoscope (unlike Edison) was very careless about copyrighting its films and it is perfectly possible that this is in fact an older film (1902 or 1903 when such vaudeville sketch-films were common) and simply was not copyrighted until 1905 (Mutoscope copyrightd its films in batches).
Alternatively it may have been hurried out a a response to (and/or indeed potential accompaniment for) the first genuine film of the Adventures of Raffles which was made the same year by Vitagraph. It is sometimes ascribed to Gilbert Anderson (the future "Broncho Billy ") but was more probably the work of Stuart Blackton. and starred J. Barney Sherry (in his first film). Vitagraph also produced the first Sherlock Holmes film the same year, directed by Stuart Blackton but again featuring J. Barney Sherry (probably in fact as Watson). Sadly, since so many Vitagraph films were not preserved in paper copy and were later destroyed in celluloid by a spectacular studio-fire, only fragments of the Sherlock Holmes film are thought to survive..
It is also no quite true to suppose that the film was not meant to look a bit silly. While the film companies continues to show excerpts from vaudeville sketches, they were beginning to become distinctly sniffy about popular theatre performances in general (vaudeville and melodrama) and about the exaggerated style of acting used so there was an increasingly tongue-in-cheek aspect to their reproduction on film.
The 1905 date is a copyright date and Mutoscope (unlike Edison) was very careless about copyrighting its films and it is perfectly possible that this is in fact an older film (1902 or 1903 when such vaudeville sketch-films were common) and simply was not copyrighted until 1905 (Mutoscope copyrightd its films in batches).
Alternatively it may have been hurried out a a response to (and/or indeed potential accompaniment for) the first genuine film of the Adventures of Raffles which was made the same year by Vitagraph. It is sometimes ascribed to Gilbert Anderson (the future "Broncho Billy ") but was more probably the work of Stuart Blackton. and starred J. Barney Sherry (in his first film). Vitagraph also produced the first Sherlock Holmes film the same year, directed by Stuart Blackton but again featuring J. Barney Sherry (probably in fact as Watson). Sadly, since so many Vitagraph films were not preserved in paper copy and were later destroyed in celluloid by a spectacular studio-fire, only fragments of the Sherlock Holmes film are thought to survive..
It is also no quite true to suppose that the film was not meant to look a bit silly. While the film companies continues to show excerpts from vaudeville sketches, they were beginning to become distinctly sniffy about popular theatre performances in general (vaudeville and melodrama) and about the exaggerated style of acting used so there was an increasingly tongue-in-cheek aspect to their reproduction on film.