Strange Adventure of a New York Drummer (1899)

STRANGE ADVENTURE OF NEW YORK DRUMMER (1899)
Article 4270 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-22-2013
Directed by Edwin S. Porter
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Haunted Inn Melies imitation

A New York drummer finds himself in a strange room where people and furniture disappear and reappear.

The first strange thing I noticed is the lack of the word “a” in the title between “of” and “New”; it makes it sound like New York Drummer is the guy’s name, or that there’s only one drummer in New York. What’s less strange is that this is another variation on a standard Melies setpiece; it’s the haunted room where items and people appear and disappear magically. Still, despite being a retread, it does have a couple of novel moments, such as one where a visitor (the landlord or hotel manager, I guess) stuffs the guest in a trunk. This is a fairly standard entry in the early years of special effects cinema.

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The Bridge (1929)

THE BRIDGE (1929)
aka The Spy
Article 4269 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-19-2013
Directed by Charles Vidor
Featuring Nicholas Bela, Charles Darvas, Marbeth Wright
Country: USA
What it is: Thriller with a twist

A spy, sentenced to be hanged off the side of a bridge, makes an amazing escape when the rope breaks…. but there’s a catch.

For those who don’t recognize the story from the plot description, this is another adaptation of Ambrose Bierce’s classic, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. I’ve seen the 1962 French version of the story (which ended up as an episode on “Twilight Zone”), and if this version doesn’t quite equal that one, it comes very close to doing so, and is a worthy effort. It’s also more efficient, as it’s less than half the length of the later one. Back when I covered the 1962 version, I commented on how the scarcity of dialogue made it an ideal choice for showing in other countries, and I couldn’t help but notice how the same factor also made it an ideal choice for a silent movie; not a single title card is used or needed here. My favorite moment in this one was when the spy hears the drum being beaten and hearkens back in his mind to his son playing a drum, a truly elegant visual moment. In fact, many of my reactions and thoughts about this movie were very similar to the ones I made when I reviewed the 1962 movie, including the fact that, despite the fact that the twist is rather horrific, it’s not quite a genre movie. At any rate, this version of the story is recommended as well.

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La fee printemps (1902)

  • LA FEE PRINTEMPS (1902)
    aka The Spring Fairy
    Article 4268 by Dave Sindelar
    Date: 7-18-2013
    Directed by Segundo de Chomon
    Cast unknown
    Country: France
    What it is: Fantasy trick film

    In the dead of winter, a couple offers food and shelter to a passing old woman. But perhaps this old woman is more than she seems…

    I really find it interesting to compare the works of Segundo de Chomon with those of Georges Melies. There are times where Chomon’s works seem to be little more than imitations of Melies’s movies, and there are times where he even outdoes Melies in terms of strangeness. There are also moments where he displays a lyrical quality that seems to lie outside of the Melies universe entirely, and this movie is one of those. I like little touches such as the fact when the fairy first appears, she is the only person in the scene to be hand-tinted, giving her a special quality. The scene where the winter landscape is transformed into a spring landscape, and where the fairy magically gathers flowers are handled with a grace that does not break the lyrical mood of the piece; Melies would most likely have taken the opportunity to show off more at the expense of the mood. Ultimately, this is a satisfying little trick film that also manages to tell a coherent little story as well.

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Ko-Ko’s Hypnotism (1929)

KO-KO’S HYPNOTISM (1929)
Article 4267 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-17-2013
Directed by Dave Fleischer
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Silent Ko-Ko cartoon

When Ko-Ko’s animator takes up hypnotism (with the help of inserted hypnotic eyes), the clown humiliates himself by doing his animator’s bidding. Seeking revenge, Ko-Ko consults with a witch in order to learn hypnotism himself.

When you consider that an animator has control over what his creations do in the first place, you’d think he wouldn’t have to stoop to hypnotism, but we’re in the land of cartoon logic here, and those rules don’t apply. That being said, this is one of the more amusing Ko-Ko the clown cartoons I’ve seen, with the animator (I’m assuming it’s one of the Fleischer brothers) having a lot of fun in the process. For a few moments, I found myself wondering if the cartoon was actually made partially with sound; some of the music and sound effects seems particularly apt on the copy I saw on YouTube. It threatens to get a little gruesome at one point where Ko-Ko, thinking that his dog Fitz is a nut, is about to crack him open with a nutcracker, but things stop just in time.

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Kiss Me! (1904)

KISS ME! (1904)
Article 4266 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-16-2013
Director unknown
Cast unknown
Country: USA
What it is: Comic short

A passing man finds himself tempted by a woman in a theatrical poster who is winking at him and inviting him to kiss her.

There’s a full plot description of this one on IMDB, and if you see the same copy of this that I did (I found it on YouTube), you’re going to need it. The problem is that the impact of the short relies on our being able to see the woman in the poster winking and offering herself for a kiss, but the print is so ragged that it’s impossible to tell if she’s moving at all, and if you can’t see her moving, then the short will make very little sense. Still, even if you could see it, it really wouldn’t make the comic content here a lot greater, and if you’re curious about the special effects, there are none; what is supposed to be the poster of the woman is obviously a woman standing in front of a black background, and the whole thing is probably shot in one take. Because it involves a poster coming to life, it qualifies as fantasy, but in its present shape, it’s hardly worth checking out.

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Spiritualist Photographer (1903)

SPIRITUALIST PHOTOGRAPHER (1903)
aka Le portrait spirituel
Article 4265 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-15-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: France
What it is: Magic film

A magician turns a woman into a portrait of herself, and then back.

This is a pretty ordinary Melies trick film, and I’d probably be largely finished with this review if it weren’t for one interesting little touch. It opens with a man holding up two placards, one in French and one in English, which convey to the viewer the knowledge that a dissolve effect will be demonstrated in the short without the use of a black background, and that this is a novel effect, and, if the truth be told, I do remember that this particular trick was almost always done with a black background up to this point. I don’t know just how difficult it was to switch to a technique using a white background, but it must have been tricky enough for Melies to take the trouble to explain the change in the film itself. If anything, this does demonstrate that the purpose of some of these magic shorts was to experiment with new techniques, which makes this short at least a little more interesting historically.

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Soviet Toys (1924)

SOVIET TOYS (1924)
aka Sovietski igrushki
#4264
Date: 7-14-2013
Directed by Dziga Vertov
No cast
Country: USSR
What it is: Animated Soviet propaganda

A greedy capitalist devours everything and gives nothing back. Can the worker and the peasant force him to put his excess funds into the state bank?

What we have here is another foray in Soviet propaganda; it’s basically an allegory about conditions that arose in USSR at the time that Lenin instituted a New Economic Policy that resulted in the rise of greedy entrepreneurs. Much of the imagery is grotesque, especially the sequence where the capitalist gorges himself, vomits into a barrel, and then drinks the contents of the barrel. It verges into fantasy several times, the most striking of which is the merging of the peasant and the worker into a single two-headed creature that was capable of extracting the funds from the capitalist. The animation has a vaguely Emile Cohl-ish quality to it, which makes it a bit primitive for the time. I found it somewhat interesting but also quite predictable at times, and it is best viewed as a product of its time and place.

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Hurricane Island (1951)

HURRICANE ISLAND (1951)
Article 4263 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-13-2013
Directed by Lew Landers
Featuring Jon Hall, Marie Windsor, Romo Vincent
Country: USA
What it is: History on a budget

In order to recover from a curse brought about by a poisoned arrow, Ponce De Leon must find the fountain of youth. Unfortunately, pirates are also after the fountain of youth… and the gold that is supposed to be there.

Sometimes the opening credits can set the appropriate expectations; the second I saw that the producer was Sam Katzman, I knew this rather fanciful historical epic was going to be very budget-conscious. Still, there are worse directors for this sort of thing than Lew Landers, and though much of the movie is stiff and silly, it’s also entertaining enough to get by, the acting is mostly acceptable, it does have some decent spectacle, and, despite the historical background, it doesn’t back away from the fantastic content (the fountain of youth really exists). It’s far from great, but if you keep your expectations in check, it passes muster.

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The Skipping Cheeses (1907)

THE SKIPPING CHEESES (1907)
aka Les fromages automobiles
Article 4262 by Dave Sindelar
7-9-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Bizarre trick short

When an argument about the odor of the wares of a cheese vendor result in her arrest, her own wares come to her rescue.

I’ve shown several of Melies’s shorts to my friends, and for some reason, this little oddity seems to have become the favorite of the bunch. It’s not really Melies’s special effects expertise that is the reason for its popularity; it’s the sheer absurdity of the premise coupled with the “English as a second language” narration by a Frenchman. The vision of a police department under attack by murderous cheeses is something to be reckoned with, and the deadpan description in particular of the death of the magistrate is pretty hilarious to these ears. No, it’s not one of Melies’s best, but it is one of the more jaw-dropping concepts he’s worked with.

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Sightseeing Through Whisky (1907)

SIGHTSEEING THROUGH WHISKY (1907)
aka Pauvre John ou Les aventures d’un buveur de whiskey
Article 4261 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-7-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Drunken visions

A lazy servant on a tour of ancient ruins decides to lag behind and get drunk on whisky. He collapses and has strange visions.

Maybe it’s because I’ve had a bit of a movie drought lately, but I rather enjoyed this Melies short, despite the fact that it has a fairly poor reputation. Still, one of the accusations made against this short must be reckoned with, and that is that Melies doesn’t break any new ground; it’s mostly a series of “things-appearing-out-of-nowhere” tricks that he’s done before, and even the most surreal moment (in which the drunkard is tormented by a bunch of dancing girls with mops) has popped up in an earlier short. I think I may have liked it a bit more because the title had me expecting a rehash of THE DREAMS OF A RAREBIT FIEND, and the short goes in a different direction; still, that doesn’t mean it went anywhere new. And, if you’re like me, you may spend some time wondering when the sleeping woman in the foreground will play into the action, but you’ll have to be patient; she’s there to set up the final gag.

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