Watch The Derby For Free

Excellent but underrated film

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Blistering performances.

This actuality by R.W. Paul and Birt Acres is only of mild interest, as the print is scratchy and spotty, but the fact that it depicts a major event that happened over a hundred years ago gives it good historical value. Despite the fact that this film is included in the Paul shorts featured on Volume 2 of Kino's "Movies Begin" set, this film does not display the humor of Paul, telling us it was probably more inspired by Acres.We see a race track. Some horses are galloping past the finish line, then a moment later the crowds stream out onto the tracks. 30 brief seconds of a time long gone. Interesting, if scratched, footage.(Note: There is proof that it was Acres who shot the film, as a photo of him filming it survives).

This is definitely not one of the better works from British silent film pioneer Robert W. Paul. It's filmed from the audience of a horse race and a couple seconds in we see the horses and their riders approaching the finish line. As the last one has barely passed, the whole crowd moves down on the road track almost like in a football stadium after a big victory of the home team. Pretty uncommon behavior I certainly didn't expect at a horse race, especially with how posh and pompous everybody was dressed back then. They turn into a herd of wild hooligans almost. Anyway, here's nothing really interesting about this short movie. Paul, Guy and the others have done far more impressive work during that day and age already.

This film is perhaps only an existing fragment of a longer version because everything seems to be over when we - in Steve Ryder-speak - join the action. We see a handful of horses cantering past the camera's vantage point in the first half of the film and it's clear that the race has actually been run and all we are watching is the horses slowing down after passing the winning post. As soon as they've past the crowd swarm onto the race track for some reason, as if they everybody want to be on the side that they're not on and therein may lie a great philosophical statement on the part of the filmmakers... or maybe not. The film's grainy and there's not a lot to see, but it has historical significance as one of the earliest extant British films and an example of the brief and ill-fated collaboration between British pioneers R. W. Paul and Birt Acres.

I watched this film on a DVD that was rammed with short films from the period. I didn't watch all of them as the main problem with these type of things that their value is more in their historical novelty value rather than entertainment. So to watch them you do need to be put in the correct context so that you can keep this in mind and not watch it with modern eyes. With the Primitives & Pioneers DVD collection though you get nothing to help you out, literally the films are played one after the other (the main menu option is "play all") for several hours. With this it is hard to understand their relevance and as an educational tool it falls down as it leaves the viewer to fend for themselves, which I'm sure is fine for some viewers but certainly not the majority. What it means is that the DVD saves you searching the web for the films individually by putting them all in one place – but that's about it.Not sure if this has a claim as the first sports film ever, or sports coverage even but here Robert Paul's film takes an approach similar to Lumiere where the latter filmed across action rather than head onto it. Paul's film is interesting for this angle but sadly not for the action. We appear to be at or past the finish line and as a result we see the horses coming in at a near saunter, rather diminishing the impact of seeing the action. The crowd are more interesting though in their social make up and appearance – just a shame that the angle means we can only just seem them until the very end.Overall then an interesting shot across action at a major sporting event but the action is surprisingly dull and while the crowd provide more of cultural interest, the framing means they are too out of shot for most of the time.