And “safety bikes” (with two smallish wheels and a chain, as opposed to dangerous “ordinary bicycles” [penny-farthings]) were also developed in the 1880s, so they’d have been quite new at the time - and probably quite expensive.
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Yeah, I noticed that the only bikes in the film were “safety” models. Meaning they were all relatively new I guess.
My only knowledge of a penny farthing’s handling characteristics comes from Mark Twain’s account of learning to ride one - so maybe not entirely accurate - but I imagine they’d be better suited to locations much less bustling than Paris.
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I’ve seen some recent examples where it works, and there are some who simply refuse to watch black and white films. I mean, even in the video linked in the OP, the soundtrack is completely fake, but it adds to the realism.
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Hey look, there goes the same guy with a giant bushy beard! Oh wait, that’s a different guy with a huge bushy beard.
Regarding the large numbers of horse carriages… it must have smelled like an awful lot of horse poop.
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at the end of the first scene [EDIT: no, it’s the second scene, sorry], there’s a woman who looks to be wearing a mask, like a domino. anyone have any idea why? i was thinking that there weren’t more bicycles because (1) they were pretty new then, and (2) would you be able to bike in most of those outfits? i sure wouldn’t. i love how everyone just walks, rides, or cycles anywhere whenever they want, and everyone just figures it out. i also think the eiffel tower was pretty new at this point. it’s interesting to see it back then. also, the moving sidewalk was definitely my highlight.
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So many hats.
I counted about four people without hats in the whole thing.
Great time to be in the hat business.
“Learn the safest trade, my child, everyone will always need a daily hat and that will never change.”
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On the upside, out of all the poop’s horse poop is without a doubt the easiest on the nose!
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if you’re interested, here’s a very nice video of such an apparatus. The actual pumper is from 1899 and is intended to be horse drawn, but this one has a 1911 gasoline traction engine in place of the horses .
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This was a spectacular video, thanks for posting it!
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Whatever you do, don’t read the comments on that video. Almost nothing but post after racist post bemoaning the fact that dark-skinned people have destroyed the pure, white France depicted in the film. And most of them with hundreds of likes.
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The expectation that people wear appropriate finery when they’re out and about – and while having to gracefully dodge horse dung. A generation of the observant, spry, well-dressed.
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YouTube’s business model in a nutshell.
My solution:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/herp-derp-for-youtube
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I had the same moment there.
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If anything at all, I’d say it’s an offence to historical accuracy. Yet who’s to know – given the chance – if any of those period B&W ‘artists’ would have opted for color. Whatever the case there, if current producer/restorers insist on releasing colorized versions, the B&W versions should be offered at the same time. (That said, I wouldn’t invite to dinner anyone who released a colorized version of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. I’d never enjoy the meal.)
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Yes, came to the comments for this. 
Totally cool.
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Paris’s population then was actually a couple hundred thousand more than it is now (although I’m sure the surrounding area is a lot more populated now than it was then). Most of the public places in the movie had less people than I expected.
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I certainly don’t miss colorization here. Wow.
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I think this film was actually produced by the Lumiere brothers, who were at the same time developing their Autochrome colour photography process, so as you say in this case they would have opted for colour if they could have.
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…including colorizing, stabilizing, and dubbing.
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France had prospered by colonising lands inhabited by dark-skinned people, some of whose descendents, oddly enough, emigrated to France.
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