Movie Watch Project of Doom

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4.

A Gaumont drama (6 min.) by Louis Feuillade and Guy. Here we have a nanny taking her four-year old charge to the park. The nanny dozes on a bench and the little girl wanders off to save the day not once but three times! Although Feuillade’s involvement in this film is contested, IMDb credits both him and Guy. 

A Pathé trick film by Chomón that isn’t anything much besides pretty. Really, the stencil coloring of this film is outstanding -- crisp, and multiple colors on each frame. There’s a small, annoying attempt at plot that remains incomprehensible, and the tricks aren’t anything new. The tableaux, while nice, are dated even for the time. But the coloring is still worth it.

An Edison comedy by Porter of a merchant who loses merchandise and business and comes up with a way to recoup his losses. Based on a then popular picture postcard series, Edison made a series of these films based on an antisemitic stereotype character, the scheming merchant trope, named Cohen. This film starts off as a basic chase comedy with a mix-up of the trash man taking a new shipment to the dump, but the second half is difficult to watch today.

A Pathé magic act trick film by Chomon. Here we have a magician dressed in period costume performing tricks with a massive cigar box (humidor, I think?). Everything that we expect from a Méliès trick film, except that it’s just not as good. The magician is often half out of frame, and I don’t care much because he’s boring compared to the Méliès charm and flair. But Chomón, whose signature films are much better, and Pathé don’t care to be as good or better than Méliès -- just good enough to hurt his market share is fine by them.

A very short (4 seconds!) Japanese animated film. Considered not only the oldest animated film from Japan, but the oldest solely drawn animated film anywhere! Here we see a boy drawing on a board, then he turns toward the viewer and tips his hat. Bravo!

A Méliès comedy of two burglars breaking into a home and the shenanigans that follow. Although there are pratfalls and an interesting situation with a change in scene and then back again, this film falls a bit flat. The plot is thin and so is the comedy. Not one of his best, sad to say.

A Gaumont behind-the-scenes actuality of Alice Guy directing one of her famous phonoscènes. This is the first behind-the-scenes actuality of movie making that I’ve seen, and perhaps the first ever produced. Fascinating!

The special effects and pacing in this film are well done, but the boy’s means of coercing Santa Claus is a bit disturbing (just a bit, but still!).

A Pathé trick film by Chomón starring his wife, Julienne Mathieu. Pathé brought in Chomón to compete with Méliès, and this film is certainly an example of that. Similar to Méliès’s Maestro Do Mi Sol Do, some of the effects here are more intricate -- such as with the masking and double exposures -- but the charm is lacking. Well done, but without that definitive quality that makes Méliès stand out even today.

A Vitagraph live action/animated film by Blackton. Here, Blackton does his lightning sketch routine from his vaudeville days, and some of the drawings are animated. But ugh! The first sketch is horribly racist and antisemitic. Hard to stomach for modern viewing. While the animation sequences are well done, especially for the time, I just couldn’t get over the beginning to enjoy the film.

A Méliès horror film? I don’t even know. This film starts off nice enough with a small dance at an ancient Roman party. But then, yikes! A prisoner is brought in and tied to a stake and dragged outside. Three stakes in all are set up in the background. And yeah, you can guess from the title what happens next. Um, why? Why so dark, Georges? No real plot and more than fairly disturbing.

A Méliès horror trick film in which he’s a bogie man/ogre who cooks up some dinner (warning: dinner is a young man, so a bit macabre!). With the aid of a good fairy, that dinner comes back to haunt him. Not one of Méliès’s finest, but the macabre theme keeps it interesting.

An Edison comedy (11 min.) by Porter of a young man, trying to get out of a difficult position with his fiancee, has his old college friend pretend to be his sister. Although the telephone exchange in this film is brilliant (animated text moves between two insets to literally spell out the conversation for us), the rest of the film is a little overly-ambitious in terms of comic effect. Yet for that, most of it works well, and most of the humor carries through.

A Méliès magic act trick film in which a jester attempts to amuse a king. Unfortunately, the last half of the film is somewhat degraded and makes for difficult viewing, and the half we do get to see clearly starts off much too slowly. Also, unusual for Méliès, some of the action takes place slightly off frame. And it looks like a mishmash of sets (why is the throne in a cave?!?). Definitely not his best.

A Méliès historical fantasy film fragment (less than 2 min. remain) in which the king of Thebes discovers his future. Nice double exposure for the telescope effect but unfortunate blackface caricatures for the servants (ugh).

A Gaumont actuality by Guy of the takeoff and flight of a dirigible. Le patrie. Commissioned by the French army in 1906, Le patrie took her final flight in 1907 when she tore lose from her moorings (so not the flight filmed above) and disappeared into the Atlantic. Cinematically, not Guy’s best, but the dirigible is sleekly beautiful.