What is Seen Through a Keyhole (Par le trou de la serrure) (France, 1901, 2 min.)

• A hotel porter spies through three keyholes in his hotel, only to see something he wasn’t expecting! [Note: it’s a cross-dresser disrobing]

Sandow (US, 1894, 22 sec.)

• A well endowed white man flexes his muscles.

Annabelle Butterfly Dance (US, 1894, 19 sec.)

• An imitator of Loie Fuller, the “lesbian electric fairy of the belle epoque.” With hand coloring.

Dickson Experimental Sound Film (US, 1894-95, 16 sec.)

• Two men dance in each other’s arms while a third plays violin to test out Edison’s sound-on-cylinder synchronized sound system.

Dancing at the Bivouac (Danse au bivouac) (France, 1896, 1 min.)

• Soldiers in Madrid dance in each other’s arms in this early Lumiere film.

Dances Through the Ages (Skilda tiders danser) (Sweden, 1909, 3 min.)

• Two women dance the Boston waltz together.

The Consequences of Feminism (Les Résultats du féminisme) (France, 1906, 7 min.)

• A world where women go to bars and pick up innocent men, while the menfolk stay at home cooking and cleaning. The horror! Directed by Alice Guy-Blaché.

Meet Me at the Fountain (US, 1904, 5 min.)

• A man gets chased around town by a rabid bunch of suitoresses; but it’s famed female impersonator Gilbert Sarony who wins his hand.

Pranks (US, 1909, 5 min.)

• An estranged couple is forced to cross-dress when two boys play a prank on them. But even more interesting is the gay couple they run by, who is lounging on a picnic blanket in the park together. Perhaps one of the first surviving film representations of a gay couple!

A Range Romance (US, 1911, 12 min.)

• Romance between two cowboys on the range. At the last minute, one discovers that the other is a girl in disguise. (The Brokeback Mountain of the silent era!)

Algie, the Miner (US, 1912, 10 min.)

• A sissy boy goes West to become a man. He is impressed with his roommate’s large firearm, and they become the best of friends. Directed by Alice Guy-Blaché.

15-minute intermission

Rowdy Ann (US, 1919, 24 min.)

• Lesbian comedian Fay Tincher plays a rowdy cowgirl who is sent to an all-girls school to become a lady. You can imagine how this goes!

What’s the World Coming To? (US, 1926, 22 min.)

• Set “one hundred years from now” when men have become like women and women like men. Except these women look suspiciously like stylish lesbians from the 1920s, like Jane Heap and Radclyffe Hall.

She’s a Prince (US, 1926, 27 min.)

• A flapper undergoes the initiation for a secret society, gets mistaken for a visiting prince, and ends up caught in more gender and sexual play than expected!