GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

He_who_lurks Here, the infamous high-wire walker Juan (A.) Caicedo performs his basic routine for the camera. He appears to be quite at home with his flips and bounces, and seems perfectly relaxed. If you've ever seen any Edison shorts from 1894, then you'll know that many of them featured an athlete or dancer performing for the camera, and then when released to the public Edison would make money off these performers. In this case, Edison decided to film a high-wire walker. No story, nothing, but it's simply a video of a performer long dead. Not a great film but one which will no doubt interest historians and film buffs.(Note: Caicedo also appeared in another Edison film from the same year--"Caicedo (with spurs)". Presumably, this film is considered lost).

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) If you won't come see the artists, we make them come to you. Or at least their efforts put on tape. And most people back then would have wondered what tape is before watching the likes of Caicedo wowed them. The jumping is a bit repetitive, but it's a nice transition to the somersault, the highlight at the end of the film, from Juan A. Caicedo on the high wire. His dress is also quite nice to watch and elevates the visual viewing experience of these 20 seconds. Okay movie, okay performance, surely one of the better artist films, but not among Dickson's and Heise's very best short film works although I'd have probably paid back in the day to see Señor Caicedo perform.

cricket crockett . . . with his seemingly effortless 10 bounces (mostly off his rump) filmed in someone's backyard in what may be the first location shot in American film history. Wearing a costume not unlike something you would see at a bullfight, Juan Caicedo was a star attraction at a New York City performance hall for 17 weeks at the time of filming CAICEDO WITH A POLE July 25, 1894. Working with a slack wire and a balance pole about eight feet long, the mustached wire artist seems as if he could bounce back and forth forever on the narrow filament of which he's made a second home. While it's true one of the easiest ways to watch CAICEDO WITH A POLE is at the United States Library of Congress web site, the original score written for this 24.47-second short by theater organist Clark Wilson would be missing there. To approximate the experience users of the Edison Manufacturing Company's short-lived "kinetophone" product experienced, get your hands on disc one of the 4-dvd set entitled EDISON: THE INVENTION OF THE MOVIES from the Kino Company.

Boba_Fett1138 This movie short can go down in history as the first ever Edison production to be filmed outdoors. It picked an interesting and nice subject of having a rope and slack wire walker doing a couple of tricks outdoors.The rope and slack wire walker is Juan A. Caicedo. A Venezuelan who performed a couple of times in the United States, also in 1894, when this film got shot. He really shows that he was not just any ordinary rope and slack wire walker and he does lots of jumping and bouncing within this movie, without of course falling off, or every loosing his balance. He is not on an incredible height but the things he does do look pretty dangerous nonetheless. I for one certainly wouldn't want to attempt trying all that he does within this movie short. No wonder he got called the 'king of the wire'.It seems pretty amazing to me that he actually managed to stay within the camera it's field. A real achieved once you see what kind of tricks he does. Sort of makes you wonder how many takes it took them to finally get the right and wanted result. You can also conclude from this that this movie was well staged and set up by its director, whoever that was. Most likely it was just William Heise, the camera operator who also performed the directing duties that this movie short required.A nice to watch kinetographic experiment.8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/