Unsuccessful Somersault

1894

2min

One of the series gives successive pictures of an athlete in an unsuccessful attempt to turn a somersault. Everybody who has seen a boy perform this act knows the brief space of time it takes him to throw himself upon his hands, with his feet in the air and how quickly he recovers himself if he fails to go over. Yet it will be seen that the kinetograph photographed the athlete forty-four times between the beginning and the end of the act, aside from the numerous pictures taken when he was bending down to the ground and coming back to an erect position.