L'acteur en retard

This Georges Méliès film features many things you just rarely ever see in any of his other films. First, instead of being filmed completely inside, some of this film was made outside. Second, the usual stop-action scenes are missing...replaced, instead, with a lot of slapstick. Slapstick was not something the filmmaker used...and it all seemed more lowbrow as a result of all this pointless slapping, falling down, and kicking.

The story is about an actor who realizes he's late for a stage performance and again and again, things seem to conspire to make him later. Ultimately, despite a broken down cab and more, he makes it...and there's lots of slapping and the like in the process.

This film has a very ordinary look to it with little in the way of innovation. It's just flat and somewhat unfunny....an unusual departure for Georges Méliès that surprised me.

Why That Actor Was Late (1908)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

I love the work of Georges Melies but to date this here is the worst film I've seen from him. The title pretty much tells you everything you need to know. This comedy starts off in a bar where several people are getting drunk and having a good time. The actor of our title leaves so that he can get to the stage on time but all sorts of things happen to keep him from his goal. As you work your way through the filmmography of Melies you'll see that he did a lot more than just trick movies. There were quite a few comedies made by the master but this here is without question the worst I've seen. The entire film seems like it runs on for hours even though the thing only clocks in at five-minutes. The biggest problem is that nothing is funny. All of the traps that the actor gets into never work in terms of laughs so you're pretty much just sitting there with a blank on your face. It seems Melies was wanting to do something different, something other guys were making but in this case the other guys were doing it much better.

As the other reviewers have pointed out, "Why That Actor Was Late" is a rather unusual production from Georges Méliès's Star Film Catalogue, but not without any historical context or reason. Beginning in 1896, Méliès started out as an average filmmaker for the time period, with his actuality shorts along the lines of the films produced by the Lumière Brothers. This is what everyone was doing at the time, and there were no standards of judging what was a 'good' film yet: cinema was a novelty, a fad that people were amazed seeing alone regardless of content.

As Méliès started utilizing stop-motion and innovating effects such as superimpositions and dissolves, he soon rose to becoming one of the top filmmakers of the period. The work of this 'cinemagician' was groundbreaking, fun, entertaining, and creative, be it fantasy and adventure films, magic acts, etc. For years he carried a high position, as audiences were astounded by the novel effects, baffled at how he did them, and huge profits ensued. For a long time he was the target of a lot of the competition, who attempted copying and doing similar concepts, none of which quite matched up to the level of creativity and playfulness of their superior.

But as the mid-1900s came around, this popularity began to slip. Slapstick comedies, chase films, dramas, etc. became more prominent in their exciting action and more complex plots. Films were no longer stagy and theatrical, but started to be shot on location more and more, increasingly realistic compared to the elaborately painted sets of the Star Film Company. By 1908, the year this film was produced, Méliès was much more focused on beating his competition by doing the things they did, rather than vice-versa. Thus, to increase his production of films, he split up into two different studios: A and B. One of these studios was under the control of Méliès himself; the other was run with its films directed by another man, the filmmaker's production assistant and actor known as Manuel.

"Why That Actor Was Late" is generally known by knowledgeable sources online as being more likely to have been directed by Manuel, as it does not have the same theatrical style of Méliès's previous output. Notably, there is also a lacking presence that makes it surprising this is a Star Film: the director does not appear to be playing a role in this one at all; his charm and energy this film severely lacks. No wonder why the other reviewers tend to bash this as being one of the director's weakest efforts: technically speaking, this is not a Méliès film at all, associating to him only through the production company it came from. Manuel was certainly nowhere near being the energetic filmmaker that was his boss, and if anything, he was better an actor than a director, as can be evidenced here.

"Why That Actor Was Late" is purely a slapstick comedy, the only problem being none of the physical humor is funny in any way considering Méliès wasn't onscreen (or even there) to pull it off. Henri Vilbert, a music hall star, portrays an actor (apparently himself) who struggles to make his way to a production in time. Vilbert may have been an actor, but he certainly wasn't a comedian, and he comes off as more unpleasant than funny as the man knocks over a restaurant table, makes a mess of the ticket sales, and causes a ton of pratfalls. It's often said that folks back in the day liked physical humor lots more than now, and maybe this was true; perhaps this Méliès film was a hit in the day (though considering he had done better with comedy before, it was probably only average). Nowadays, to the average person, the simplistic gags in this one would come off as more dumb than funny.

Concluding, it's safe to say that while this isn't a horrible movie, it certainly isn't great, mostly due to not feeling at all like a Star Film production. There is no flair, no energy, nothing except people running around and knocking into each-other, and if anything, Manuel is to blame. This consistently churning out comedy/drama films would continue the rest of the year for Méliès, and when that trend was over, his career would be just about finished too. A sad way to go out, considering his final films were produced by Pathé, a former rival that had now gotten the better of him.

This isn't a stage magic show. There are no women who appear after first being statues. Nothing Satanic. This is a simple slapstick comedy about a guy who is late for work. Everything goes wrong, impeding him from getting on the stage for an acting performance. The problem is that there is no creativity. Thousands of poor comedies could outdistance this. One problem is that the man is incredibly unpleasant and narcissistic.