Guillaume Tell

In this short film from Lumiere, clowns George Footit and Raphaël 'Chocolat' Padilla do a routine in which Footit tries to shoot an apple off Padilla's head, as in the legend about William Tell.

It's shot on a bare stage with a blank background, almost certainly to replicate a tent show. It's a decent routine, and it should always be remembered when dealing with entertainment from the dawn of the movies, at the time the circus was the biggest sort of entertainment venue in the world. There were hundreds of traveling circuses, and many in the same location all year around. Clowns were big names in entertainment, as might be a strong man like Sandow or a lion tamer like Clyde Beatty.