Le spectre rouge

If you've seen any of Georges Melies films there probably isn't anything here that you haven't seen before and, apart from one brief sequence, this film is pretty dull as a result.

The film takes place in an underground cavern where a skeletal demon amuses himself by conjuring up a couple of hypnotised girls whom he wraps in plastic sheet before levitating them. The sheets burst into flames as they hover before the demon makes them disappear. A good spirit then appears to repeatedly spoil the demon's fun. This goes on for the best part of ten minutes and, to be honest, it gets a little tedious after a while.

The one good sequence comes when the demon places three jars on a table then carries the table towards the camera. It's an unusual shot for 1907 and is quite effective - as is the demon's make-up.

The Red Spectre (1907)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Mildly entertaining French film from director Ferdinand Zecca was clearly influenced by the work of Georges Melies. In this film, in what appears to be Hell or something like it, a skeleton brings to life a couple women and then begins to do various tricks with them. That's pretty much everything you need to know in regards to the story as everything else is just one trick after another. There are a few good things about this film but at the same time it's just so easy to see that it's no where near the league of Melies and you have to feel that the French master was doing this type of film a decade earlier and doing it much better. I think the biggest problem is that there's really no strong pacing and after a while the 9-minute running time just feels like it's dragging along. There are several of the tricks, which simply aren't that entertaining and for one good example just check out the one where the skeleton wraps a woman up in some sort of tarp. How the trick was done is easy to spot. There are some good things however and this includes the scenery, which is quite nice to look at. The biggest highlight has to be the very good tinting and especially the reds.

This is one of the weirdest films I've ever seen from the filmmaker Segundo de Chomón--and much of this is because the film is set in Hell and the leading man is the Devil himself! Interestingly, he looks much more like a skeleton than 'Ol Scratch and he is bored. In fact, he's so bored that he decides to put on a magic show! Assisted by his main squeeze (Julienne Mathieu--the director's wife), the Devil does one trick after another after another. In fact, there are so many that it's fatiguing. It's much like watching three or four of Georges Méliès films (who Chomón is clearly copying from) and stringing them into one long film.

The film has some serious pluses--nice costumes, terrific sets and a weirdness that is wonderful. A huge minus that Chomón isn't innovating here but is 'copying' the work of another man--using a lot of the tricks innovated by Méliès. Fortunately, however, he still manages to make a very nice film.

The Red Spectre is a trick film from France in the style of Georges Méliès; although this one was directed by Ferdinand Zecca. It has all of the visual invention you would expect and it also has a nice red coloured tint which is perfect for its atmosphere.

It's set in an underground cavern and features a demon warlock. This evil character possesses souls of several women. He manipulates them in several ways and generates television-like screens. All the while he is counterbalanced by a female nemesis that thwarts his evil actions and ultimately destroys him.

It may be a short film but it's full to the brim with visual ideas. Characters appear and disappear, are shrunken and burst into flames. Walls are constructed and turn into giant monitors and rock faces move aside to show a cavern full of hell-like fires. It's relentlessly inventive basically. Worth seeing if you like the visual innovation of the earliest days of cinema.

Here's Segundo de Chomon challenging Melies as the master of the trick film, using the sort of magician's act that Melies did. It's a combination of stage magic and movie magic -- if you look carefully, you can see the moments when the camera stops and something is substituted.

Because whenever Melies got before the cameras and did his act -- he was a stage magician and had gotten into making movies to fill up the show at his Theatre Robert-Houdin -- you could see his pleasure in performing, there was no way that de Chomon could match that. So he stuck his unnamed performing in a skeleton costume with horns and a cape. It's so over-the-top that it's magnificent.