After starring in a dozen or so HBO Special Presentations, comedian George Carlin has amassed a substantial body of work in the cable channel's vaults. Personal Favorites is a greatest-hits package, a selection of some of Carlin's best moments on HBO from 1977 to 1998 and, not coincidentally, some of his most enduring comic routines from any medium.
After the train station clerk is assaulted and left bound and gagged, then the departing train and its passengers robbed, a posse goes in hot pursuit of the fleeing bandits.
This is a story about a city guy Nikolai, who will have to go instead of his friend on a rural business trip. A series of funny events, meetings and the beauty of the Yakut village encourage Nikolai to make an important decision in his life…
An ex-con's plans to retire to Florida with a fortune in stolen money are waylaid after his former boss coaxes him to a remote bed and breakfast to protect the daughter he has never met. A storm traps him and 6 others at a B and B, events turn deadly. These seven seeming strangers discover that their lives are all connected by a tragic murder, from eleven years earlier.
William K.L. Dickson plays the violin while two men dance. This is the oldest surviving sound film where sound is recorded on the phonograph.
A duo of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations about a greedy wife's attempt to embezzle her dying husband's fortune, and a sleazy reporter's adoption of a strange black cat.
Annie Oakley was probably the most famous marksman/woman in the world when this short clip was produced in Edison's Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey. Barely five feet tall, Annie was always associated with the wild west, although she was born in 1860 as Phoebe Ann Oakley Mozee (or Moses)in Darke County, Ohio. Nevertheless, she was a staple in the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show and similar wild west companies. Because of her diminutive stature, she was billed as "Little Sure Shot." The man assisting her is this appearance is probably her husband, Frank E. Butler. Annie had outshot Butler (a famous dead-eye marksman himself) in a shooting contest in the 1880's. Instead of nursing his bruised ego because he had been throughly outgunned by a woman, Butler fell in love, married Little Sure Shot, and became her manager.
Barbara is a filmmaker who has been working in the prison environment for a few years now. She is preparing a film written and directed by long-term inmates in a prison in the projects around Paris. Twice a week, Barbara goes to the prison where she shoots interviews with the inmates which will serve as a basis for the writing of their screenplay.
The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.
"a colorful poem of the first copy-motion film... the system registers images directly from a color (xerox) duplicator model 6500... an original, versatil, unique system developed by Darino" –Back Stage
The pursuit of Hop Lee by an irate policeman.
A wife escapes her pressure-filled marriage only to have her husband haunt her literally and figuratively.
A man (Thomas Edison's assistant) takes a pinch of snuff and sneezes. This is one of the earliest Thomas Edison films and was the second motion picture to be copyrighted in the United States.
The Glenroy Brothers perform a portion of their vaudeville act, "The Comic View of Boxing: The Tramp & the Athlete".
Free-lance undercover agent Coplan receives a phone call from an old girlfriend in Turkey. The panic-stricken woman gives sketchy details of a plot that threatens world security. When Coplan arrives, he is told the woman has been killed, and the trail of the murderer leads to her mad-scientist brother.
Arvind Chauhan and Lakhsmi are in love with each other. Lakhsmi's dad, a senior police inspector, hates Arvind, and so Arvind and Lakshmi decide to elope
Red, a shy orphan who spent most of his childhood in a girly bar, grew up to be the town's best fixer. When a rich kid was gunned down in a drug bust that went wrong, Red was hired by Art, a spoiled socialite, to fix the mess.
The story of Monica Chowdry, a National Spelling Bee champ…from 15 years ago. Life hasn’t quite panned out as expected for Monica since her big win. When her estranged older brother returns home to help care for their sick mother, the siblings must find a way to reconcile.