Dream of a Rarebit Fiend

A man is having a bit too much of a good time out on the town – drinking and eating far too much. He stumbles home and goes to bed but it is clear to the audience that the effects of his drinking habits are far from being out of his system.

A simple film this one but one that is interesting for its place in cinema history. The title is the plot and the first few scenes of the film are really just there to get our character into bed and falling into a drunken deep sleep. The main thing the film wants to do is how many visual effects it can then produce. In this case it achieves this really well and sets up a memorable dream sequence that is imaginative and technically impressive. As with all films from this period, it is worth keeping it in the context of the period and what other things were being done with other films. With this in the mind the film is worth seeing because it is imaginative but more than that it is technically impressive at a time when cinema was just starting to develop.

Let me start off by saying that I haven't seen the Melies movies from this period to compare it to. Given that caveat I must say I found this piece of film-making to be incredibly entertaining. On Image Entertainment's box-set of Unseen Cinema this short is included with its original soundtrack played by the Edison Military Band. This music must be the most crackpot, shamelessly joyful and subversive piece ever composed. I do not think the film would be the same without it.

I must say I found it very exhilarating to watch a man in a white suit and top hat spooning rarebit into his maw and down his face, slurping his porter or ale in the same mouthful. It's a glorious act of hedonism and reminds me of similar outrageous acts when I was a child (far too sensible now, sigh). For other commenters to think that this would not make him paralytic and hallucinatory is astonishing naivety. The way that he tries to hold onto a lamppost after leaving the restaurant whilst the whole world gyrates about him is an excellent portrayal of drunkenness unmatched in the judgmental and sober modern era.

Just when he thinks he's made it home safe and sound to bed (ah the respite of the divan!) the whole room starts dancing, poor chap, all of us drunks have fallen for this mirage of comfort. The voyage over the city in his bed is a bit odd for me, but doesn't dampen this excellent entertainment.

What an amazing cinematic experience! Just as Porter's influence was starting to wane, he makes what is arguably his most visually stunning film. Though not as famous as "Life of an American Fireman", Rarebit Fiend is a clever, captivating piece of film history.

The 'plot' as such is irrelevant - what the film does is take opportunities to showcase as many new special effects as it possibly can. Tricks of space, dimension, time, both in-camera and on set, create one of cinema's first convincing nightmare perspectives. Predating the surrealist era by decades, Porter's film is a must see for all fans of non-linear and non-traditional film-making.

With a slight but bizarre story, and all kinds of special visual effects, this is one of the weirder but more interesting features of its era. It's not really a great film, since some parts of it don't quite work as well, but it's very interesting, and it would still be interesting even if it had been made some years later.

The story comes from some of Winsor McCay's comic strips about the "Rarebit Fiend", and the offbeat material indeed seems ready-made for cinema. There is just enough to the scenario to allow for a wide range of camera effects. Several sequences effectively and creatively combine panning shots and stationary views superimposed on each other to create an effect. The "whirling" effect, towards the beginning of the movie, might be the best one.

There are a number of other features from the first decade of the 1900s that might be even better in terms of the visuals, and/or that are more enjoyable as narratives, but this is still one of the movies that those who enjoy watching these very old films should make a point of seeing. It's unusual, experimental, and interesting.

Although Edwin S. Porter is well known as the director of THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, the landmark short that combined a good story line, cross-editing and other remarkable techniques for its era, his role in American cinema history has largely been relegated to a footnote: Edison invents the motion picture camera, goes the hagiography, and Griffith comes along and perfected the story-telling of cinema. And, oh yeah, Porter directed this movie in 1902 that is actually all right.

But Porter was actually a wildly experimental cineaste. In more than 100 movies, he experimented with cross-cutting, story-telling, breaking the fourth wall -- remember at the end of THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY where the robber shoots a gun at the audience? -- and did lots of camera tricks, particularly here, where there are a couple of shots that have triple exposures.... and in an era when everything had to be done in the camera, using masks and stopwatches, he got some remarkable effects, which he used with great good humor.

This trick movie is based on Windsor McKay's DREAMS OF A RAREBIT FIEND series of cartoons. McKay did a series of cartoons based on it in the early 1920s, but this is pretty heady stuff for the era. It was Edison's blockbuster for 1906 -- they sold 192 copies of the film!