The King and the Jester (1908)
Genre :
Runtime : 5M
Director : Georges Méliès
Synopsis
French short about King Francis I and his jester Triboulet, who form the basis for Hugo's play Le roi s'amuse (and Verdi's opera Rigoletto).
Jack is taken on a sea-snail to the lair of a fairy, who magically turns him into a prince. He thoroughly enjoys the dancing and fawning of the court. Then he wakes up, and it turns out that he's an ordinary chimney sweep.
The interior of a trolley car. A menagerie of passengers notices a foul odour, and pinpoint the source of the stench at a cheese saleswoman. The gendarmerie removes her from the trolley and drags her to the precinct.
On a city street, a number of men take advantage of an old drunken bum.
The seven-minute film takes place inside a classroom where some cops are learning English.
Bewitched trunk
A crazy, rude musician gets some supernatural comeuppance.
Fun film from French master Georges Melies has a couple burglar's breaking into a man's home and having to hide when that man returns. Instead of a trick film or something that he's known for, the director really changes gears here and instead delivers what's basically an action movie.
Partially lost film. One of the kings of ancient Thebes enters the abode of an astrologer and demands that he be told his future. The former utterly refuses to forecast the coming events of his sovereign, even under the pain of death; but he brings forth a priestess who possesses the powers of divination. This priestess is introduced in a wonderful way: a throne is brought forward, and then a box from which the pieces of a statue are removed and piled up in regular order; the statue suddenly becomes animated. The king implores the latter to foretell his life. She commands him to look through a telescope toward the side of the room. A vision appears. (Moving Picture World)
The Melies version of the old Rip Van Winkle tale.
There's a scene in a village, then there's a scene out in the wilderness with what appear to be gods, and a giant crab, and a giant frog... then there's another scene in the village... and that's it.
The staff of an inn play a cruel trick on a guest.
Melies the magician does tricks.
Very early footage of the streets of Barcelona, filmed from a tram.
A poor family in a rundown house where snow falls through the broken roof, there's no coal to heat the pathetic little stove, mother is sick, father sends daughter out to beg. Rejected by other beggars, the girl collapses in the snow…
The Bogie Man's cave is one of the many triumphs of set design for Georges Méliès. More unusual for the pioneering French director is the grisly turn when the monster chops up his servant for a steaming pot of stew. But the Bogie Man’s guilty conscience weighs on him, plaguing his sleep with even more fantastic visions of just deserts. (Max Goldberg, Fandor)
In a room filled with jugglers' properties of enormous size a prestidigitateur dressed in eccentric costume enters with his assistant. The servant, believing that he would be comfortable in an armchair, sits down in it, but finds that it conceals a bucket of water, in which he falls. The juggler brings a large empty cask and puts it upon a table and fills it up with several pails of water.
A boy is led into the frame by two nursemaids who give him a big ball to play with. For the remainder of the film heads appear and disappear, stage props blow up and turn into other objects or people, and finally Bob Kick disappears.
Magic tricks in a medieval setting.
Melies second attempt at telling the story of Faust. This time out Faust and his love Marguerite are sentenced to Hell where they are showed the torture that awaits.
A writer sells his masterpiece to a film company. It gets butchered horribly in the process of getting made into a movie.