A "sourcier" is someone who detects a source hence a warter-diviner. wat is known in English as a dowser. Thhe film came out in 1913 and is very definitely by Jean Durand, who included it on the list he personally compiled of his films. Roméo Bosetti was working by this time for Pathé and would later move to Éclair but he had not worked for Gaumont since 1910.
Reviews
619 Reviews
Le gardien de phare
(1911)
Fine cinematic rendering of a real-life drama
7 November 2020
This film meant a very great deal in 1911 because it is the real-life story of the lighthouse of Kerdonis, what is called a "maison-phare", an ordinary house with a lighthouse mechanism on the roof,on Belle-Île-en-Mer in Morbihan in Brittany. When the lighthouseman died on 18 April 1911, his wife and two children kept the light going by hand all night (the mechanism having developed a fault). She was awarded a médaille d'honneur on the 16 June 1911. The Breton singer/songwriter composed a song on the subject Les Petits gardiens du feu. Gaumont filmed the medal-ceremony for Actualités (25 August edition) while this film appeared in October. The Kerdonis lighthouse is still there.
Le matelas de la mariée
(1906)
who owns that joke?
8 September 2020
The question of "plagiarism" in the context of early film and modern critics and commentators are a little bit too free in their use of the term. The problem is we often know only the films. But films had many sources and antecedents (graphic strips, waxworks, vaudeville sketches, magic shows, lantern-slides) that extend back long before the films themselves. Because of their short length, early fiction films tended inevitably to be in the nature of "gags" or "tableaux" and such gags and tableaux were equally inevitably common property to be found in any of these earlier sources (and many oher, no doubt, that have not immediately occurred to me (popular songs, pantomime). The Lumière Le Jardinier (also known as L'Arroseur arrosé, used a gag to be found in umpteen nineteenth-century comic illustrations. Finding babies in cabbage-patches is a trope from popular folklore. The famous mirror gag associated with, in reverse order and with different permutations, the Marx Brothers, Max Linder, Charlie Chase and Alice Guy was a famous vaudeville act long before any film was made. Even in terms of film this particular mattress "gag" does not originate with Alice Guy. f Méliès' had made La Cardeuse de matelas earlier the same year and this Pathé version is one of several that followed - De Geheimzinnige Matras (date unknown) and Zijn Eerste Baas (1912). See womenfilmpioneersproject.for some comparisons. But it is very likely that the gag had existed in vaudeville and in magic shows long before......
In 1906 there is something else too that has to be taken into account when considering this question of supposed plagiarism where the two principal French production companies, Pathé and Gaumont, are concerned. The men responsible for thinking up these plots and writing the scenarios, André Heuzé and Louis Feuillade, weer good friends and had been so before they started to work, Heuzé for Pathé under Zecca, Nonguet and Lépine and Feuillade for Gaumont under Alice Guy. Feuillade and his Gaumont olleague étienne Arnaud and Heuzé were all young men' the were all also bullfight enthusiasts and belonged to the same Paris club devoted to that subject that Feulilade and Arnaud )both southerners from a bullfighting part of France) had founded. During this period (before Feuillade became head of production in place of Guy in 1907), the two men wrote virtually everything their respective houses produced. This was quite common at the period. The incredibly prolific Arrigo Frustra wrote virtually everyhthiing for the Italian company Ambrosio in just the same way. And they very obviously engaged in a sort of friendly competition to see who could come up with the best version. They chose, obviously deliberately, the same subjects (in some cases even the same titles - Madame a des Envies, Le Pendu, C'est Papa qui a pris le purge) and each produced their own version. Some series of films (the ones about strikes - La Grève des nourrices, La Grève des apaches etc) went backwards an forwards between Heuzé and Feuillade like a game of piing-pong. So the question of which company produced which film first does not actually have anything like the importance that commentators and critics sometimes imagine. It was more play than plagiarism!
In 1906 there is something else too that has to be taken into account when considering this question of supposed plagiarism where the two principal French production companies, Pathé and Gaumont, are concerned. The men responsible for thinking up these plots and writing the scenarios, André Heuzé and Louis Feuillade, weer good friends and had been so before they started to work, Heuzé for Pathé under Zecca, Nonguet and Lépine and Feuillade for Gaumont under Alice Guy. Feuillade and his Gaumont olleague étienne Arnaud and Heuzé were all young men' the were all also bullfight enthusiasts and belonged to the same Paris club devoted to that subject that Feulilade and Arnaud )both southerners from a bullfighting part of France) had founded. During this period (before Feuillade became head of production in place of Guy in 1907), the two men wrote virtually everything their respective houses produced. This was quite common at the period. The incredibly prolific Arrigo Frustra wrote virtually everyhthiing for the Italian company Ambrosio in just the same way. And they very obviously engaged in a sort of friendly competition to see who could come up with the best version. They chose, obviously deliberately, the same subjects (in some cases even the same titles - Madame a des Envies, Le Pendu, C'est Papa qui a pris le purge) and each produced their own version. Some series of films (the ones about strikes - La Grève des nourrices, La Grève des apaches etc) went backwards an forwards between Heuzé and Feuillade like a game of piing-pong. So the question of which company produced which film first does not actually have anything like the importance that commentators and critics sometimes imagine. It was more play than plagiarism!
Let us consider
25 August 2020
Let us consider just for a moment that this film is one small part of a series of twenty-eight films shot by Robert K. Bonine in Hawaii between May and August 1906. Let us consider for a moment that, together - and the films were available both separately and together - those films constitute a documentary that is nearly an hour long. Let us consider for a moment that the US had annexed the islands of Hawai'i - totally illegally and for no justifiable reason - in 1898, just eight years before. Let us consider for a moment that some people in the US might be interested in knowing about the territories the peoples whose confidence they had abused and whose territory they had wrested from them. Let us consider for a moment that these films were commissioned by the Hawaiian Promotion Committee. Let us consider for a moment that this is the first substantial documentary footage to be shot in those colonised territories although Bonine had himself filmed there earlier in 1901 (for Mutoscope). Let us consider for a moment that this particular scene of surf hitting rocks is a prelude to a further film of surfboats in operation, which was (and still is) one of the principal attractions of the islands. Let us consider for a moment that the films contain information about the island's main industry (sugar), about the lives, food and customs of the people. Let us consider that it contains some very beautiful views of a place with which few USians at that time would have been familiar. Let us consider that these films were shown in many different venues, sometimes accompanied by lectures, and subsequently re-released by George Kleine Productions, who had a particular interest in educational films. Let us, above all, consider........
Unsurprisingly, Bonine decided to throw up his job with Edison, leave the US and settle in Honolulu, where he died in 1923.
Unsurprisingly, Bonine decided to throw up his job with Edison, leave the US and settle in Honolulu, where he died in 1923.
Bird's Eye View of Paris
(1906)
Follow-up to Ce que l'on voit de mon sixième
9 July 2020
This Zecca film, originally 3-4 minutes long, was a follow-up to his Ceq que l'on voit de mon sixième (first filmed in 1901 but not seemingly released until 1903) and , like that film, is a scene of voyeurism. Wheeras, however, the original film showed an old joker on his balcony spying on his neighbours, this film shows a mad old scholar who has climbed the column at the Bastille in order to watch the stars. He begins by surveying Praris but then becomes fascinated by the people at their open windows (paticularly the women undressing). Only a fragment of the film survives (one minute) nand has long been misidentified as the earlier film. Both the beginning, where the man climbs the column and the ending, where the column collapses and the man falls off, are missing.
Scenes from My Balcony
(1904)
Beware of imitations
9 July 2020
Warning: Spoilers
The one-minute fragment of film that hs long circulated under this title is most certainly not this film. This film (as its US title) makes very clear is of a man on a balcony of a sixth floor flat looking through a telescope at his neighbours. He watches a woman brushing her hair, then what appears to be an old woman removing dentures, wig and false breasts to reveal himself as a bald man. In each case because the man, described in the catalogue as a "vieux farceur" , is quite close, the victims are quickly aware of his presence and he even waves to them. When he focuses on a boy stealing jam in the kitchen, the boy spots him and gets out his dart-gun and shoots the od fellow in the eye. This film was later produced in 28mm for the Pathé KOK home-viewer (predecesor of the Baby) but retitled La Lorgnette indiscrète (The Indiscreet Lorgnette in the US version) and can be seen in its entirety (three minutes) on youtube.
The fragment wrongly identified as this film shows a weird old boy way above the rooftops surveying people at open windows all over Paris. This film, also by Zecca, was called Ce que l'on voit de la Bastille because the "vieux savant" (old scholar who has gone up to watch the stars) is balanced on top of a column.
The fragment wrongly identified as this film shows a weird old boy way above the rooftops surveying people at open windows all over Paris. This film, also by Zecca, was called Ce que l'on voit de la Bastille because the "vieux savant" (old scholar who has gone up to watch the stars) is balanced on top of a column.
Into the Net
(1924)
Early "police operational" film
23 June 2020
This is a very interesting film (or series of films) because of the prominence it gives - unusual this early - to the police operational aspects that would become hugely important in crime films of the forties and fifties. It even begins, unusually for a silent, with a first-person titlecard (I was......) and, although the first-person narrative is not exactly continued - it is presumably the detective Bob Moore who i supposed to be speaking - the narrative remains snappy in the fashion of the hard-nosed crime novel. Towards the end the story becomes a bit "Fu Manchu" but in the early episodes it maintains a relatively realistic style.
And there is a very good reason for all this. The writer of the original story, sometimes given as Inside the Net but this may be an error, was Richard E. Enright who, at the time of writing and at the time when the film came out, both seemingly in 1924, was Commissioner of the New York Police, a post he had held (a record period at the time) since 1918. He was rather an admirable policeman, the first Commissioner to have risen up through the ranks - he joined the force in 1896 - an erudite man, a supporter of unions (a fact which delayed his promotion) who was popular with his men and a stalwart opponent of police corruption.
Enright advocated a scientific approach to police-work, writing an article on the subject for Popular Science Monthly in 1923. He was also an advocate of universal fingerprinting (article in Scientific American 1925), so it is no surprise that fingerprinting plays a important part in the film and that the process associated with it is shown with great care. He was also strongly supportive of the detective component of the police-force and was the founder of the YPD's detective training school.
He served as Commissioner during the time of Prohibition and was known for his crack-down on illegal gambling (also featured in the film as part of the white slave trade/blackmail racket run by the gang. He resigned in 1925 over the support from politicians for the corrupt policeman who would not enforce the Volstead Act. He wrote at least one other detective story after his department but otherwise lived a quite life until his decease in 1953.
And there is a very good reason for all this. The writer of the original story, sometimes given as Inside the Net but this may be an error, was Richard E. Enright who, at the time of writing and at the time when the film came out, both seemingly in 1924, was Commissioner of the New York Police, a post he had held (a record period at the time) since 1918. He was rather an admirable policeman, the first Commissioner to have risen up through the ranks - he joined the force in 1896 - an erudite man, a supporter of unions (a fact which delayed his promotion) who was popular with his men and a stalwart opponent of police corruption.
Enright advocated a scientific approach to police-work, writing an article on the subject for Popular Science Monthly in 1923. He was also an advocate of universal fingerprinting (article in Scientific American 1925), so it is no surprise that fingerprinting plays a important part in the film and that the process associated with it is shown with great care. He was also strongly supportive of the detective component of the police-force and was the founder of the YPD's detective training school.
He served as Commissioner during the time of Prohibition and was known for his crack-down on illegal gambling (also featured in the film as part of the white slave trade/blackmail racket run by the gang. He resigned in 1925 over the support from politicians for the corrupt policeman who would not enforce the Volstead Act. He wrote at least one other detective story after his department but otherwise lived a quite life until his decease in 1953.
Jumbo
(1897)
Jumbo the horseless fire-engine
20 May 2020
Jumbo the Trained Elephant (Library of Congress) is a film by Hans A. Spanuth from c. 1918. Spanuth specialised in filming vaudeville acts of all kinds. It has nothing whatever to do with this Mutoscope film which is of a horseless fire-engine in Wyllys Street, Hartford Connecticut by W. K. L. Dickson on 8 April 1897, one of two films of the beast. Stills of both films exist and they are practically identical; the second of the two is on youtube as Jumbo the horseless fire-engine (qv). The Hartford Times reported the eevnt no les than twice as "Biographing Jumbo" and "Fine Day".
The Strange Monsieur Victor
(1938)
Stranger and stranger
18 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Well, well. This is a curious situation. At the time of writing there have been three reviews and all three reviewers have understood this film quite differently from myself. Almost diametrically.
I think they have all been misled by the general reputation of Raimu and it is true this makes it somewhat difficult for him as an actor to portray a thoroughly unpleasant person but there is no doubt in my mind that that is what is intended here and that Raimu does actually a very good job of portraying it (the man was a wonderful actor) if you can somehow put out of your mind the other roles Raimu played.
All the "goodness" of Victor is fake. There are many scenes in the film that give the clues to this, when the mask drops and one sees the cynicism with which he adopts his familiar "kindly" persona (which is of course also the familiar Raimu persona).. There is nothing "inadvertent" about the killing, nor one suspects about the framing of the cordonnier. There is no attempt to prevent someone going to jail for a crime he has committed nor very much sign that he fells guilty about it. He is quite happy just to quietly pay money to the wife and child and seven relatively untroubled years slip by. What troubles him is not guilt but fear when Bastien has escaped from prison and all is attempts from that moment on are to prevent himself being caught, never for one single moment to atone for what he has done and what he has allowed to happen to another human being. His mistake comes because he wants to ruthlessly threaten another potential blackmailer just as he had done with the man he murdered. When the man turns on him and informs, he would clearly be quite happy to murder him just as he is quite happy to see Bastien being taken off to jail once more. Victor is a monster, but a "strange" monster because of the way he tries to keep his real and assumed personality totally separate and the success with which most of the time he is able to do that. Raimu creates here one of the most deeply unpleasant screen villains, not on a par perhaps with Mitchum's performance in Night of the Hunter or Lancaster's in Sweet Smell of Success but in some ways both more difficult and more fascinating because of the enormous difference between the real man and his false alter ego and the rare moments when the former is allowed to appear. Most people are taken n b him most of time in the film itself - that he is how he can get away with murder - but it is quite disturbing to see that many viewers seem to be taken in by him in much the same way and a curious tribute to the power of Raimu's acting.
I think they have all been misled by the general reputation of Raimu and it is true this makes it somewhat difficult for him as an actor to portray a thoroughly unpleasant person but there is no doubt in my mind that that is what is intended here and that Raimu does actually a very good job of portraying it (the man was a wonderful actor) if you can somehow put out of your mind the other roles Raimu played.
All the "goodness" of Victor is fake. There are many scenes in the film that give the clues to this, when the mask drops and one sees the cynicism with which he adopts his familiar "kindly" persona (which is of course also the familiar Raimu persona).. There is nothing "inadvertent" about the killing, nor one suspects about the framing of the cordonnier. There is no attempt to prevent someone going to jail for a crime he has committed nor very much sign that he fells guilty about it. He is quite happy just to quietly pay money to the wife and child and seven relatively untroubled years slip by. What troubles him is not guilt but fear when Bastien has escaped from prison and all is attempts from that moment on are to prevent himself being caught, never for one single moment to atone for what he has done and what he has allowed to happen to another human being. His mistake comes because he wants to ruthlessly threaten another potential blackmailer just as he had done with the man he murdered. When the man turns on him and informs, he would clearly be quite happy to murder him just as he is quite happy to see Bastien being taken off to jail once more. Victor is a monster, but a "strange" monster because of the way he tries to keep his real and assumed personality totally separate and the success with which most of the time he is able to do that. Raimu creates here one of the most deeply unpleasant screen villains, not on a par perhaps with Mitchum's performance in Night of the Hunter or Lancaster's in Sweet Smell of Success but in some ways both more difficult and more fascinating because of the enormous difference between the real man and his false alter ego and the rare moments when the former is allowed to appear. Most people are taken n b him most of time in the film itself - that he is how he can get away with murder - but it is quite disturbing to see that many viewers seem to be taken in by him in much the same way and a curious tribute to the power of Raimu's acting.
Girl on the Run
(1953)
La-bas si j'y suis
7 March 2020
This film beautifully points up the great difficulty there is in justly evaluating films in peripheral categories which have rather different values and value from mainstream films. All reviewers are unanimous that it is an excellent film and I am not going to disagree with the, It is a first-rate film in a fourth-rate category - the lowly "low budget" "B" film. It is not quite in the class of a film like Ullmer's Detour, which is a masterpiece, but it does magnificently capture the sleazy atmosphere of the equally fourth-rate carnival it portrays. Forget the purely nominal film noir plot. It is really about this grubby and grotesque but actually surprisingly charming little world to which a "straight" man and a "straight" girl on the run have to adapt themselves and come after a fashion to appreciate its values and its value. Like the nominal plot, they are the nomivnal stars. The real performances come fom Chares Olander as the hard-bitten, blackmailing, lecherous - but actually fundamentally decent - dwarf who runs the carnival, Frank Albertson as the baker and Edith Petit splendid as Lil in charge of the dancing girls, themselves only a knife-edge away away from a life of prostitution. The writing is tense and clever and the cinematography by the unknown Victor Lukens is superb. Don't bother to look out for Steve McQueen. If you blink you'll miss him. I must have blinked.
The French phrase in the title means "down there if you find me" (when one wants to get rid of someone, in slightly old-fashioned but delicious slang, one tells them to go and look somewhere else to see if one is there). It was also the title of a long-running radio programme, the last to defend committed investigative journalism in the interested of the underprivileged - those "down tere". And it is precisely that empathy with the world "down there" (see if am not there) that is the great quality of this film. Standing up nobly for the fourth-rate!
The French phrase in the title means "down there if you find me" (when one wants to get rid of someone, in slightly old-fashioned but delicious slang, one tells them to go and look somewhere else to see if one is there). It was also the title of a long-running radio programme, the last to defend committed investigative journalism in the interested of the underprivileged - those "down tere". And it is precisely that empathy with the world "down there" (see if am not there) that is the great quality of this film. Standing up nobly for the fourth-rate!
Panorama of Calcutta
(1899)
The first Indian film to survive?
5 March 2020
This panorama is not of Calcutta; it is of the ghats in Varanasi (Benares). It is unusally credited to the cinematographer J. M. Bennet Stanford, an army officer turned war correspondent who was one of he team working or Charles Urban at Warwick Trading filming the Boer War. It seems however most improbable that Stanford would have travelled to India to make this one film.
It sems altogether more likely that it was made by someone in India and bought in by Warwick. There are two known film-makers working in Calcutta at this time, "Professor" T. Stevenson and Hirilal Sen. Sevenson had been exhibiting film s in India since 1897 (originally in Madras and touring South India) using a Warwick Bioscope camera. In Calcutta he teamed up with Sen to make two films that were exhibited at the Star Theatre in Calcutta. Subsequently Sen also bought a Bioscope and established, with his brother Motilal, the Rotal Bioscope Company in 1899. Both Stevenson and Sen seemed to have imported Warwick shorts for their exhibitions so alreayd had an established connection with Warwick. The fact that it was a bought-in film would also help to explain why it is misidentified especially if the film-makers were actually based in Calcutta.
If this is correct, then this is the first known film to survive by a film-maker -- whether Stevenson or Sen - working in India.
It sems altogether more likely that it was made by someone in India and bought in by Warwick. There are two known film-makers working in Calcutta at this time, "Professor" T. Stevenson and Hirilal Sen. Sevenson had been exhibiting film s in India since 1897 (originally in Madras and touring South India) using a Warwick Bioscope camera. In Calcutta he teamed up with Sen to make two films that were exhibited at the Star Theatre in Calcutta. Subsequently Sen also bought a Bioscope and established, with his brother Motilal, the Rotal Bioscope Company in 1899. Both Stevenson and Sen seemed to have imported Warwick shorts for their exhibitions so alreayd had an established connection with Warwick. The fact that it was a bought-in film would also help to explain why it is misidentified especially if the film-makers were actually based in Calcutta.
If this is correct, then this is the first known film to survive by a film-maker -- whether Stevenson or Sen - working in India.
Les frères ennemis
(I) (1913)
Beware of imitations
18 February 2020
Ths entry is bogus. The title is simply the French version of De Medeminnaars made by Alfred Machin for the new Pathé subsidiary Hollandsche Film.Yvonne Mario is not knwn to appear but Mary Marquet does and the director is very definitely Alfred Machin. This appears in a double entry on IMBD correctly ascribed to Machin and under its Dutch title, correctly ascribed.
King of Dollars
(1905)
Spanish films at the Sala Mercé, Barcelona 1905
4 February 2020
This films appears to have been originally made in Spain by Segundo Chomón and Adrià Gual for the Sala Mercé in arcelona wheer it firs appeared as Ells duros que no passan on 11 February 1905. The "coins that do not pass" were what was known in Spain at the time as "duros sevilsnas" , false coins that circulated widely at the period. The film therefore has nothing really to do with Méliès but is a satirical joke based on a well-known magic routine. It is possible that the film was re-edited in France in which case this would almost certainly have been done by Gaston Velle, who had himself been known for performing this particular trick as a magician in 1903. Velle certainly directed La Poule auz oeufs d'or for Pathé this same year which was also based on a film, La gallina dels ous d'or or La gallina de los huevos d'oro, made by Chomón for the Sala Mercé. (18 May 1905) and which includes Chomón's companion, later his wife, actress Julienne Mathieu in its cast . It was not until Velle left Pathé to go to Cines in Italy in 1906 that Chomón himself would come to Paris (summoned by Charles Pathé in person to replace the "traitor") and begin making films there himself for Pathé.
A Dreadful Night
(1905)
Not in colour and doubtfully by Chomón
4 February 2020
On the face of it, there is no good reason for believing this film has anything to do with Segundo de Chomón. He was extremely busy making his first Spanish films in 1904-1905 in Barcelona and did not come to Paris until summoned by Charles Pathé in the Spring of 1906, following the defection of Gaston Velle to Cines in Italy which is when. his career with Pathé would really begin. Chomón had worked as a colourist for Pathé since about 1901 but this film is simply tinted and is not known to have been colourised., and from around 1904 the firm of Macaya y Marro, one of those for which he worked in Spain, became accredited Pathé representatives in Barcelona and Chomón began to make topicalities (actualités) in the city for Pathé. He also seems to have had some input into two Pathé films in 1905, Le Roi des dollars and Velle's Poule aux oeufs d'or which were in both cases based on films made earlier by Chomón in Spain for the Sala Mercé. These films by Chomón and Adrià Gual, seem in some cases to have been adapted from existing Pathé films, occasionally included actualités filmed by Chomón for Pathé and, as in the two cases mentioned, might themselves have been the basis for films re-edited for Pathé. There is one title amongst them - Una soirée agitada which appeared in Barcelona in December 1904 - that may have been the basis for this film, possibly like the others, re-edited by Gaston Velle. But the title is a common one for trick films, from the time of the earliest Méliès films, and the similarity could be purely coincidence.
A Funny Shave
(1906)
Probably not Chomón
4 February 2020
There is no good reason for believing this film has naything to do with Segundo de Chomón. He was extremely busy making his first Spanish films in 1904-1905 in Barcelona and did not come to Paris until summoned by Charles Pathé in the Spring of 1906, following the defection of Gaston Velle to Cines in Italy. Chomón had worked as a colourist for Pathé since about 1901 and, from arounf 1904 the firm of Macaya y Marro, one of those for which he worked in Spain, became accredited Pathé representatives in Barcelona and Chomón began to make topicalities (actualités) in the city for Pathé. He also seems to have had some input into two Pathé films in 1905, Le Roi des dollars and Velle's Poule aux oeufs d'or which were in both cases based on films made earlier by Chomón in Spain. But otherwise his career with Pathé would not begin until 1906.
Los guapos del parque
(1904)
Muddled Spanish versions of a McCutcheon classic
3 February 2020
At least two Spanish films have been confused here. The film Los guapos del parque (properly Los guapos de la vaquería del parque, was made by Fructuoso Gelabert and first appeared in 1905. It involved an heiress who, after advertising for a husband, is pursued by a gaggle of boys ("guapos" is Spanish are lads not lasses). It has been confused here with an earlier film, made Oct-Dec 1904) by Segundo de Chomón for the Spanish company Macaya and Marro, L'hereu de Ca'n Pruna, which is the film we have. The 1905 film is not known to survive.
The confusion arose because many years later Gelabert claimed, wrongly, that the Macaya y Marro film was a copy of his own film with the genders reversed, since when the two films have been confused in many Spanish filographies. On the other hand Gelabert's recollection is not entirely incorrect in that the film was a parody of another film, but not by Gelabert, called Un joeen distinguido desea casarse (A distinguished young man wishes to marry). In that film which also appeared in Spain in October the main character is a "distinguished young man" arriving in New York who advertises for a wife. This is probably just the original American film (Personal or the Edison copy) but Gelabert has, when accusing Macaya y Marro of plagiarism, not very honestly replaced it, in his account, by a more original version (with genders changed) that he later made of essentially the same story in 1905.
Both Spanish films are based, like the Edison film mentioned by another reviewer, on Wallace McCutcheon's Personal made for Mutoscope and Biograph in June 1904 and one of the biggest international successes the company ever enjoyed.. Other versions include Lubin's Meet me by the Fountain (1904), British Gaumont's lost Personal (1905) and, quite the best in terms of quality of the surviving films, Georges Hatot's Dix femmes pour un mari (1905) for Pathé.
The confusion arose because many years later Gelabert claimed, wrongly, that the Macaya y Marro film was a copy of his own film with the genders reversed, since when the two films have been confused in many Spanish filographies. On the other hand Gelabert's recollection is not entirely incorrect in that the film was a parody of another film, but not by Gelabert, called Un joeen distinguido desea casarse (A distinguished young man wishes to marry). In that film which also appeared in Spain in October the main character is a "distinguished young man" arriving in New York who advertises for a wife. This is probably just the original American film (Personal or the Edison copy) but Gelabert has, when accusing Macaya y Marro of plagiarism, not very honestly replaced it, in his account, by a more original version (with genders changed) that he later made of essentially the same story in 1905.
Both Spanish films are based, like the Edison film mentioned by another reviewer, on Wallace McCutcheon's Personal made for Mutoscope and Biograph in June 1904 and one of the biggest international successes the company ever enjoyed.. Other versions include Lubin's Meet me by the Fountain (1904), British Gaumont's lost Personal (1905) and, quite the best in terms of quality of the surviving films, Georges Hatot's Dix femmes pour un mari (1905) for Pathé.
Personal
(1904)
Cinema's commn heritage
3 February 2020
This films is most certainly not a remake of the Edwin S. Porter film, overlong (both with regard to its title and to the film itself), which did not appear until the autumn. McCutcheon's film was copyrighted in June (but the August date of the advert probably reflects the date on which the film was first expected to be shown. AM&B sued Edison for plagiarism but unsuccessfully and there had by this time been several other versions of what was one of the most important and influential films of the year. Other "remakes" that survive include Lubin's Meet Me at the Fountain, which was quite straightforwardly adevrtised as a new version of Personal, but featuring the female impersonator Gilbert Saroni, and Segundo de Chomón's L'hereu de Ca'n Pruna also made in the autumn of 1904 for the Spanish company Macaya y Marro. Quite the best film version of the story is Dix femmes pour un mari, directed by Georges Hatot, which was not made until 1905 (for Pathé).
But, as with much material used fro early films, it is quite simply a joke - and a fairly obvious one - that was already current, probably before any of the films were made. In this sense, although McCutcheon undoubtedly deserves credit as the man responsible for the most important and influential treatment of the theme, the courts were right to dismiss AM&B's complaint, much as one may regret the tendency of the US legal system to kowtow before the hugely inflated reputation of Thomas Alvar Edison.
Another Spanish film, now seemingly lost, by Fructuoso Gelabert, Los guapos de la vaqueria del parque seems to have been much the same story in ervers - that is to say a millionairess who had inherited money who advertises for a husband and ends up being pursued by all the boys in town. Gelabert later claimed that the other 1904 Spanish film was copied from his film rather than from the US film Personal. Unfortunately his film does not seem to have been made until 1905!
Before talking about "remakes" one needs to bear in mind the huge common heritage on which cinema could call for simple one-minute or two minute films. - popular jokes and anecdotes, cartoons, dance and vaudeville acts, lantern slides, early gramophone recordings etc etc etc. Edison and Lubin did copy AM&B in this case (and both made a regular habit of doing so at this period) but McCutcheon himself was simply drawing from the common well. The most enjoyable version to watch today is the Hatot one, not because it is the first but quite simply because it is the best.
But, as with much material used fro early films, it is quite simply a joke - and a fairly obvious one - that was already current, probably before any of the films were made. In this sense, although McCutcheon undoubtedly deserves credit as the man responsible for the most important and influential treatment of the theme, the courts were right to dismiss AM&B's complaint, much as one may regret the tendency of the US legal system to kowtow before the hugely inflated reputation of Thomas Alvar Edison.
Another Spanish film, now seemingly lost, by Fructuoso Gelabert, Los guapos de la vaqueria del parque seems to have been much the same story in ervers - that is to say a millionairess who had inherited money who advertises for a husband and ends up being pursued by all the boys in town. Gelabert later claimed that the other 1904 Spanish film was copied from his film rather than from the US film Personal. Unfortunately his film does not seem to have been made until 1905!
Before talking about "remakes" one needs to bear in mind the huge common heritage on which cinema could call for simple one-minute or two minute films. - popular jokes and anecdotes, cartoons, dance and vaudeville acts, lantern slides, early gramophone recordings etc etc etc. Edison and Lubin did copy AM&B in this case (and both made a regular habit of doing so at this period) but McCutcheon himself was simply drawing from the common well. The most enjoyable version to watch today is the Hatot one, not because it is the first but quite simply because it is the best.
the Mutoscope "experimental"
31 January 2020
AM&B ad a policy at this time (the film was in fact shot in August 1901) of giving a certain leeway to their cinematographers to produce photographic studies that would be listed in the catalogue (as was this one) as "experimental". This was an acceptance of the really very poor quality of photography in US films by comparison with their French counterparts. But since the company knew that the lowest-common-denominator viewer - the average Joey the Bronx as it were - was not necessarily going to appreciate the interest of a film that neatly caught the moment of intersection of two trams, the films were designated in this way, as would not have been necessary in a more sophisticated European film market. The notion, probably introduced by Wallace McCutcheon unquestionably helped enormously in improving the quality of photographic work at AM&B and their cinematographers - Armytage, Marvin (who shoots this film , Weed and Bitzer - were soon quite the best the US had to offer, a fact that would contribute very greatly to the company's success towards the end of the decade under D. W. Griffith.
A social contretemps
10 January 2020
Warning: Spoilers
This, like many Vitagraph films of 1908 exists in a series of synoptic slips eposed with the Copyright Office and now in the possession of the Library of Congress. It is not as good as having the whole film, the clips are played too fast and one of the scenes of this film is out of order but, in combination with the contemporary description, they nonetheless give a fair idea of the film.
Although it is, in a sense a "crime" film, it is really more in the nature of a darma. A young woman is saved from a car accident by an unknown man and is instantly charmed by her rescuer. She is, however, the daughter of a rather high-class burglar and is obliged to assist her father in his work. A burglary has been planned by the gang - there is a second man involved - in which she has her part to play and the house chosen is, by the purest of coincidence, that of the unknown rescuer. It is not a very interesting nor a very original plot, but it is quite attractively shot in several different scenes, exteriors as well as interiors, and the acting is relatively subdued.
What is, I think, interesting to note is the care with which both the contemporary description, and the film itself, define the social condition of the characters. The woman is "attractive and neatly dressed"; the man is invariably described as "a gentleman". The burglars whom we meet so briefly are "one, middle-aged, with hard but intelligent face; his companion, younger and more cunning than intellectual". It is apparently normal for "a gentleman" to order his wife to bed when the clock strikes midnight. She, "woman-like", jumps to the wrong conclusions when she catches her husband in conversation with the burglaress. All this is somewhat caricature but it is surprisingly meticulous. The woman must of course pay "the penalty of her wrong-doing" but, being attractive rather than "hard" or "cunning", is generously treated by the man and his wife (evidently matters have been "squared") on her release. It is not naturalism by any manner of means but there is a genuine, if faintly ridiculous, attention to social context.
Although it is, in a sense a "crime" film, it is really more in the nature of a darma. A young woman is saved from a car accident by an unknown man and is instantly charmed by her rescuer. She is, however, the daughter of a rather high-class burglar and is obliged to assist her father in his work. A burglary has been planned by the gang - there is a second man involved - in which she has her part to play and the house chosen is, by the purest of coincidence, that of the unknown rescuer. It is not a very interesting nor a very original plot, but it is quite attractively shot in several different scenes, exteriors as well as interiors, and the acting is relatively subdued.
What is, I think, interesting to note is the care with which both the contemporary description, and the film itself, define the social condition of the characters. The woman is "attractive and neatly dressed"; the man is invariably described as "a gentleman". The burglars whom we meet so briefly are "one, middle-aged, with hard but intelligent face; his companion, younger and more cunning than intellectual". It is apparently normal for "a gentleman" to order his wife to bed when the clock strikes midnight. She, "woman-like", jumps to the wrong conclusions when she catches her husband in conversation with the burglaress. All this is somewhat caricature but it is surprisingly meticulous. The woman must of course pay "the penalty of her wrong-doing" but, being attractive rather than "hard" or "cunning", is generously treated by the man and his wife (evidently matters have been "squared") on her release. It is not naturalism by any manner of means but there is a genuine, if faintly ridiculous, attention to social context.
Loie Fuller
(1902)
The films Loïe Fuller never made
8 January 2020
American-born Paris dancer Loïe Fuller was one of the most celebrated dancers of the period and, until the emergence of her protégée Isadora Duncan, the most important figure in "modern dance". She most certainly creatid the Serpentine Dance in 1893 but she also wrote an autobiography and does not say a word about ever making a film. The film companies all reproduced her dance with other dancers, occasionally hinting that it really was Fuller in the film but none of the films genuinely feature her. Pathé entiled the film Loïe Fuller but never actually claimed that it was her.
Crawford Shoe Store
(1897)
Madison Square
2 January 2020
Crawford's had a store in Madison Square, New York. The horse-drawn buses were typical and can be seen in photographs of Madison Square at this date. Fashionable shoe store and scrubby shoe-shine boy. It is not altogether without humour.
One Girl Swinging
(1897)
looking up girl's skirts
1 January 2020
The reviewer is right to be a shade baffled. There is only one girl on the swing and the film's title in the AM&B Catalogue (from 1898) was One Girl Swinging. There are stills in existence of two films where this is very clearly identified as One Girl Swinging although it may also have been known as Three Jolly Girls and the Fun They Had with the Old Swing, which is on IMDB as a separate entry but is a ghost entry. Two Girls Swinging, the other film for which stills exist, had what looks like two little girls on the swing being pushed presumably by their mother. One or other but most probably Both films seem to have been recorded together for copyright purposes as Girls Swinging which is where Niver and Killiam took it from when they transferred the film from paper print in the fifties.
There is of course a mildly voyeuristic element as there was with a great many Mutoscope films at this time (girls struggling on a sofa, girls exercising in the morning etc etc) . A famous example that places such films in a long ad enduring tradition is the "Marilyn Monroe" film wit the skirt blowing up. This is known from a version by Edwin Porter and George Fleming for Edison (What Happened on Twenty-third Street 1903) but Mutoscope had been there first. They made the film A Windy Corner in 1898 and I suspect that A Breezy Day on a Man-o'-War was more of the same. One of my favourite examples of this sort of voyeuristic camera is in a film by a very great film-maker, Jean Vigo. In his 1930 A propos de Nice there is quite an extended sequence where the camera tries to look up the skirts of some girls dancing above. I am not certain what the verdict is but we are in the same general area here as Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Plus ça change.....
There is of course a mildly voyeuristic element as there was with a great many Mutoscope films at this time (girls struggling on a sofa, girls exercising in the morning etc etc) . A famous example that places such films in a long ad enduring tradition is the "Marilyn Monroe" film wit the skirt blowing up. This is known from a version by Edwin Porter and George Fleming for Edison (What Happened on Twenty-third Street 1903) but Mutoscope had been there first. They made the film A Windy Corner in 1898 and I suspect that A Breezy Day on a Man-o'-War was more of the same. One of my favourite examples of this sort of voyeuristic camera is in a film by a very great film-maker, Jean Vigo. In his 1930 A propos de Nice there is quite an extended sequence where the camera tries to look up the skirts of some girls dancing above. I am not certain what the verdict is but we are in the same general area here as Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Plus ça change.....
the plight of the emigrants
15 December 2019
This was not made by the Edison studios. It was filmed by Billy Bitzer fo Mutoscope. The issue of immigration was a sensitive one as the US tightened the screws and Ellis Island became as much a detention centre as a lace of welcome. What this shot film catches is the melancholy condition of the emigrants/immigrants. (both words were used). They certainly do not look anything like day-trippers.
Training for reilway personnel
15 December 2019
This is in no sense a clone of The Great Rain Robbery. . It appears to have been made by Mutoscope (Frank Marion, Wallace MCucheon and Billy Bitzer) on commission from the Empire State Railway Company to be shown to railroad crews to give them an idea of what to expect if bandits attempted to hold up their train. The style adopted is entirely appropriate for that purpose and a very interesting use of cinema for practical instructional use. It would seem to be the same film as that listed as Holdup of the Rocky Mountain Express although it is possible that two such films were made. A similar film was made the same year by the new California branch of Mutoscope by Archibald H. Van Guysling , founder of the branch, along with operator Otis M. Gove.
Training films for railway personnel
15 December 2019
This Mutoscope film has nothing to do with Edwin Porter nor in fact a great deal to do with the 1903 Great Train Robbery.. It appears to have been made by Mutoscope (Frank Marion, Wallace McCutcheon and Billy Bitzer)) on commission from the Empire State Railway Company to be shown to railroad crews to give them an idea of what to expect if bandits attempted to hold up their train, It would seem to be the same film as that listed as From Leadville to Aspen: A Hold-Up in the Rockies although it is possible that two such films were made. A similar film was made the same year by the new California branch of Mutoscope by Archibald H. Van Guysling , founder of the branch, along with operator Otis M. Gove.
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