Here is the footage, I'll link to right when the clip begins, but just in case, it's the one that starts at 53 or 54 seconds and ends at about 55 seconds. It's the one with 7 levels of wings that crumples right away.

Explanation: I was watching this clip of Airplane! on YouTube when they showed this old black and white short film of a multiplane . I've seen this footage before, I'm pretty sure it's famous. It seems to get added in a lot when someone is showing early aviation history or dumb inventions.

I Googled for a while, heck, I even tried Bing, but I couldn't find the right wording to even find a better example of the footage, much less any further history about it. But I'm really sure I've seen the footage elsewhere.

I'm just curious about it I guess. Who were they? Is there a longer video of that event? When and where are they, and why did they build it?

Edit: The multiplane link didn't work, here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplane_(aeronautics)