How Brown Saw the Baseball Game (1907)

How Brown Saw the Baseball Game, also known as How Jones Saw the Baseball Game, is an American short comedy film produced in 1907 and distributed by the Lubin Manufacturing Company. The film follows a baseball fan, named Mr. Brown, who drinks large quantities of alcohol before a baseball game and becomes so intoxicated that the game appears to him in reverse motion. During production, trick photography was used to achieve this effect.

The film was released in November 1907. It received positive reviews in a 1908 issue of The Moving Picture World, a film journal, that reported the film was successful and "truly funny." As of 2015 it is unclear whether a print of the film has survived. The identities of the film's cast and production crew are not known. Film historians have noted similarities between the plot of How Brown Saw the Baseball Game and the Edwin S. Porter-directed comedy film How the Office Boy Saw the Ball Game released the previous year.

Synopsis

Before heading out to a baseball game at a nearby ballpark, sports fan Mr. Brown drinks several highball cocktails. He arrives at the ballpark to watch the game, but has become so inebriated that the game appears to him in reverse, with the players running the bases backwards and the baseball flying back into the pitcher's hand. After the game is over, Mr. Brown is escorted home by one of his friends. When they arrive at Brown's house, they encounter his wife who becomes furious with the friend and proceeds to physically assault him, believing he is responsible for her husband's severe intoxication.