JoeytheBrit Robert Paul is a largely forgotten name today, but he was a major pioneer of British cinema, and was quick to grasp the commercial potential of cinema in ways that better known pioneers such as William Friese-Greene were not. He was more of a mechanic than a filmmaker making, with Birt Acres, his own camera on which to shoot films in 1895, and also Britain's first projector, the Animatograph, with which to screen them in 1896. Early in the 20th century he had a custom-made studio built in Muswell Hill.This short (one minute) comedy film is based on a popular music hall sketch. In the film, Professor Bakem offers an incubation process to make babies bigger, but his assistant accidentally starts a fire under the incubator, which produces the inevitable results. For a comedy, it isn't very funny.

boblipton This Robert Paul production directed by ex-stage magician Walter Booth is a comic warning about the effects of modernism. In this case, Professor Bakem offers his baby incubator, which will add a year's growth to an infant in a few minutes. But when the baby is put in the incubator, a fire starts, and when the baby is removed, it has the beard of an old man! Although the production values are not as elaborate as those that Melies was employing, the frenetic movements of the players is highly reminiscent of Melies' actors. Perhaps this was Paul's response to the great success of ex-stage magician Melies' movies. The film industry was already international in scope and Paul understood that you give the public what it wants.