From what I understand, this is not the only Sandow film out there. Edison made several films on this strong guy, but I've only seen the one included on "The Great Train Robbery and other Primary Works" disc. And apparently that one is the first.Originally entitled "Souvenir Strip of the Edison Kinetoscope" I'm guessing Edison and Co thought this would be their only film about Sandow. So when they made others they changed its name to "Sandow No. 1". About 20 seconds long (the version on the DVD I own is that long because it was under-cranked a tiny bit) this short features Sandow showing off his muscles. That is all. While it might've (hey, I made a joke, ha ha) been nice for him to actually perform a stunt or two, what's here isn't all that bad and while it might (there I go again) be only mildly impressive it is history. And, considering the Edison film strips were only about that long at the time, you can't really blame them.Worth seeing, but more for the fact it's a piece of history than for entertainment. Too bad Sandow isn't still alive, I could've learned something from him...

Eugen Sandow appeared in quite a few very early short film late in the 19th century and early in the 20th, but at least about this one here, i cannot really see the appeal. He wears nothing but a slip (and a prominent mustache) and shows us his repertoire of how he loves to flex his very well-trained muscles. Maybe a vintage Schwarzenegger, but I can not really see any redeemable or artistic qualities in this 45-second (fairly long for that time) short film by silent movie pioneer William K.L. Dickson. It's all posing, but I wasn't impressed beyond the physical strength. Definitely one of the director's weaker films, but with his quantity not everyone can be a winner.

. . . and this was considered "family entertainment" by light bulb guy Thomas Edison during a period when the extremities of chairs and tables needed to be referred to as "limbs" in polite society (since a woman blurting out "I just bumped my knee on a table LEG" would be judged harshly for employing such a scandalously racy figure of speech). Seen today, SANDOW No. 1 could only be viewed as a truncated half minute TV commercial for some brand of adult underpants, such as Depends. An otherwise naked guy twists this way and that, with the pitchman (if this could have been a talkie) intoning, "Look, no matter which way Teddy totters, he doesn't leak!" This "Sandow" guy's parents must have left him with a pretty big chip on his shoulder when they christened him "Friedrich Wilhelm Mueller." (That's even worse than George Alexander Louis Hanover--oops, I mean Windsor!) Whenever his parents took this boy named everything but Sue to the museum, young Wilhelm yearned to be one of the nude statues, immune to the laughter of passing schoolgirls. (See his biography here on IMDb.) The crying shame of it is that in the 21st century he could have buffed up, crossed illegally into China, shouted "Long live the Dalai Lama!" and before you could say "Jack Robinson" he'd have been shot in the back of the head and plasticized for museum exhibition--which was his ultimate dream all along!

This is a 20-second long Edison Company short, filmed March 6, 1894 at Edison's Black Maria studio, of the man widely considered to be the first modern body builder, Eugen (or "Eugene") Sandow, who flexes for the camera.Sandow, born Friedrich Wilhelm Mueller in 1867 in Prussia, had worked as a sideshow strongman, often for famed showman Florenz Ziegfeld. In later years he was the personal fitness instructor for King George V. He authored a number of books on health and fitness and is credited with doing much to start the "health movement" that continues to this day.Sandow was notable for believing that strongmen shouldn't just present displays of strength, but show off their bodies as works of art. Conceiving of his body as sculptural artwork, Sandow looked to classical Greek and Roman statuary for an ideal human form to emulate.Ziegfeld put together a traveling show called "Sandow's Trocadero Vaudevilles"--"Trocadero" after the Chicago nightclub Ziegfeld's father opened in 1893, hoping to capitalize on the city's upcoming World's Fair. In the roadshow, as in appearances at the Trocadero, Sandow presented "Muscle Display Performances", as he does in this short. He also performed the usual feats of strength, although he would occasionally execute odd stunts such as holding a pony above his head.An amusing incident on the roadshow occurred in San Francisco, where it was publicized that Sandow would wrestle a "man-eating lion". Thousands showed up, but it was obvious that the animal had been drugged--it could barely function. Despite such fiascos, Ziegfeld and Sandow traveled for nearly two years.So Sandow, the short--the copyright title is actually "Souvenir strip of the Edison Kinetoscope (Sandow, the modern Hercules)"--has much historical significance. As a work of art, it isn't quite as successful as some other Edison shorts, such as Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1894). The picture is broached by light seeping in from either side, probably due to some technical problem with the early cameras. Less forgivable, the framing of Sandow is too close, resulting in poses being cut off; you can often not see Sandow's hands, and it somewhat ruins the statue-like effect that was the point of Sandow's performance.But Sandow is impressive enough physically, and in light of the historical interest, both because of its place in the history of film and Sandow and Ziegfeld's lives, it's certainly worth the few seconds it takes to watch.