LE GRAND MELIES (1952)
Article 5225 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-9-2016
Directed by Georges Franju
Featuring Jeanne d’Alcy, Francois Lallement, Andres Melies
Country: France
What it is: Biography / Homage

The life of film-maker Georges Melies is shown.

This short in and of itself isn’t genre, but any exploration of the work of Melies is bound to have some fantastic content, if for no other reason than it would probably have to feature footage from his most famous film, A TRIP TO THE MOON. It’s a lovely homage to the pioneer film-maker, and it has the novelty of featuring his wife and star Jeanne d’Alcy as herself. Melies is portrayed by his own son, Andres Melies, who bears a striking resemblance to his father and gives a good performance here. There’s a nice lyrical magic to the piece, especially during a sequence where Melies performs magic tricks for a couple of youngsters visiting his toy shop. The main limitation of the movie is that it’s really too short to give the full story of his life, but the main points are covered, and the movie is quite lovely.

THE GOLD RUSH (1925)
Article 5224 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-7-2016
Directed by Charles Chaplin
Featuring Charles Chaplin, Mack Swain, Tom Murray
Country: USA
What it is: Chaplin comedy

The little tramp goes prospecting for gold in the Klondike, and ends up encountering a fellow prospector who had discovered a mountain of gold as well as a dance hall girl with whom he falls in love.

You know, if I had to do this whole movie-watching project over again, I would institute a rating system. This would not be to gauge the quality of the movie, but rather to gauge the degree to which the movie belongs to the fantastic genres which I’m covering. When I began, almost every movie I saw fully belonged to the given genres, but now I find myself frequently encountering movies where the fantastic content is slight or confined to a single scene of the movie. A rating system would have served as a quick, easy indicator of the movie’s status in this regard. In the case of the movie, it’s clearly not a fantasy when taken in its entirety; it’s just for a single scene of the movie, it takes a turn into the fantastic when two starving prospectors are trapped in a cabin during a raging storm, and one begins to hallucinate that the other is a giant chicken; the hallucination is displayed visually. Again, it’s a single scene, but you have a giant animal as well as flirtations with madness and cannibalism.

That being said, I’ve ended up encountering a lot more of Chaplin’s work than I expected I would have (and I have yet to cover the one that most prominently qualifies, which would be MODERN TIMES). However, this one is near and dear to my heart. It is not only the first Chaplin movie I ever saw, but the first silent film as well. Chaplin is in fine form here, and the movie contains several famous sequences. There is the scene where Chaplin is forced to eat his own shoe, the dance performed with potatoes and forks, and the scene where a cabin teeters over the edge of a cliff. I love his work here; I’m especially impressed with how he shows such a grasp of human nature to get us to feel the elation and disappointment when an attractive person of the opposite sex seems to be trying to catch your attention only to discover they’re intending the attention for someone behind you. I think that this still rates as my favorite Chaplin movie.

GOLD DIGGERS OF ’49 (1935)
Article 5223 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-6-2016
Directed by Tex Avery
Featuring the voices of Billy Bletcher, Joe Dougherty, Bernice Hansen
Country: USA
What it is: Early Warner Brothers Cartoon

Beans the Cat discovers gold and the Gold Rush is on. However, when a villain steals a bag belonging to Porky Pig, Beans must catch him if he wants to marry Porky’s daughter.

I HAVEN’T GOT A HAT introduced Porky Pig to the world. However, he wasn’t the one originally pegged for cartoon stardom; the powers that be thought that Beans the cat, also introduced in that cartoon, would be the big star, and he gets top billing here with Porky in a secondary role. The title is a parody of a series of musicals from the era with similar titles; gold diggers were women trying to marry rich men, but here, they’re prospectors. For an early Warner Brothers cartoon, this one is not too bad; a couple of the early gags did make me laugh, though some of the later ones fall flat. It also has a couple of politically incorrect gags, including one in which a couple of Oriental stereotypes are turned into black stereotypes after being covered with smoke. I attribute some of the success to the creativity of director Tex Avery, who keeps the action moving at a brisk pace. Talking animals make up the main fantastic content, though we do have a bit of science fiction; assuming the cartoon takes place in 1849, what’s the automobile doing here? There’s also some bizarre experiments in cross-breeding or genetic manipulation as well, unless you can think of another explanation as to why Porky Pig has a kitten daughter.

THE GAUCHO (1927)
Article 5219 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-1-2016
Directed by F. Richard Jones
Featuring Douglas Fairbanks, Lupe Velez, Eve Southern
Country: USA
What it is: Swashbuckler

A holy shrine finds itself threatened from two sides. From one, it is being oppressed by the tyrannical Ruiz. On the other, it is the target of a roguish swashbuckling outlaw known as The Gaucho. But perhaps there is hope…

You know, this plot is so neatly and conveniently set up, it’s hard to be surprised what happens. We have an innocent group of people being oppressed by the unambiguously evil yoke of political tyranny, a charismatic but self-serving anti-hero who opposes the oppressor, but is only prevented from being a full hero by the fact that he needs to be spiritually awakened, and a location in which the Virgin Mary inspires faith healing that is the ideal site for bringing about a spiritual awakening… if you don’t know how this is going to play out, than you can’t connect the dots. That’s not to say it doesn’t work; with the charismatic Douglas Fairbanks as the title character, you’ll be having too much fun watching him in action to bother about the story. Furthermore, he’s supported by Lupe Velez who plays his willful and appealing girlfriend, and who matches him and challenges him at every turn. If you haven’t figured it out, the fantastic content consists of miracles (with the Virgin Mary mystically appearing several times). Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and the spectacle of some of the scenes is also truly appealing. You know, it may be a predictable cliche, but I don’t think they really do make movies like this anymore.

GALATHEA: DAS LEBENDE MARMORBILD (1935)
Article 5218 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-31-2016
Directed by Lotte Reiniger
No cast
Country: Germany
What it is: Animated legend

A sculptor falls in love with one of his creations, and wishes the statue would come to life. When she does, the sculptor is overjoyed… until she discovers that his creation has a will of her own.

This is another example of Lotte Reiniger’s silhouette animation. One interesting touch here is in the scene where the statue comes to life. In the short, the backgrounds are fully rendered and only the animate characters are silhouettes, but when the statue comes to life, it turns into a silhouette at that point, and, from the looks of it, spends almost the entire short naked (in silhouette). This causes a sensation when she escapes from the sculptor’s studio and begins wandering around town, much to the delight of the male residents and the contempt of the female residents, who force the sculptor to find a way to control his creation. The short is both bittersweet (the sculptor’s lover is scorned by him after he creates the statue) and comic, and it pretty much ends the way you’d expect it to end. Still, it’s a delightful short, and is a good example of Reiniger’s skill in silhouette animation.