WONDERFUL BEEHIVE (1905)
aka Ruche merveilleuse
Article 4945 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-2-2015
Directed by Gaston Velle
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Decorative short

Women dressed as bees dance before their beehive.

Like yesterday’s movie, this is a silent short that I managed to find on YouTube. Also like yesterday’s short, it does not appear to be complete; if the sole user review on IMDB is to be trusted (it’s by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre, but it does appear to be one of his legitimate entries), there’s a scene where the queen bee is threatened by a giant spider that is not in the print I saw. This is a bit of a disappointment, as this footage would have upped the fantastic content a bit; there’s really not a lot to be said about dancing ladies in bee costumes otherwise. However, I suspect the spider scene was fairly brief, as the short apparently ended as it began; with girls in bee costumes dancing. This is one of those silent shorts that seems to be largely decorative in nature; rather than telling a story or exhibiting a special effect, it seems to be content to look pretty. On this level, it succeeds; the short is quite easy on the eyes.