Having discovered special effects two years prior, in 1896, Méliès was still experimenting with the film edit and its potential even by 1898. He was using it to present magic shows on film (as in "The Vanishing Lady" and "The Famous Box Trick") and cavaliers being haunted in castles (as in "The House of the Devil" of 1896 and its remake, "The Devil's Castle" of 1897). Here, instead of using it to bring magic to the screen, he hides it (well, sort of) in this comedic piece with its oddly irrelevant title and a different set-up. Instead of using the effect to wow audiences, the edits here are used to support the joke, which is a new and highly clever one (both for the time and now).
The reason I say this film has an oddly irrelevant title is because the action in the short has nothing to do with what its label suggests. There's practically nothing in here at all to connect it with the story of Swiss's hero and I have to wonder what the director was thinking when he titled it. A clown, intending to reenact William Tell's archery back all those years ago, assembles a mannequin (William Tell, so the French title implies) out of some body parts and sets a piece of fruit in its head. He then gets ready to shoot at it with the crossbow, but the mannequin (Méliès possibly, because of the huge bushy beard) suddenly comes to life and throws the fruit at him. Thinking there's something wrong with his creation, the clown takes off the arm and puts it back on, but the mannequin resents him trying to shoot at the fruit and continues to cause trouble.
It's good to see Méliès experimenting, but his special effects missed the mark by a lot. For one thing, the actor playing the mannequin, when alive, has a bushier beard than that of the dummy, so it's pretty easy to see the change from live actor to doll. If Méliès or whoever played the mannequin had remembered to shave, it would have improved things a lot. (I do, however, credit Méliès for getting the last edit right; it's seamless in the final result). As a whole, I think I can forgive the poor editing because the bizarre nature of the story makes up for it--and I doubt back then it mattered anyway since nobody even knew how he did it in the first place.
Sadly, a complete print of this movie does not survive. According to the description in the Star Film Catalogue, the film originally ended with the clown discharging the arrow from the bow, shooting himself by accident and causing the gun to explode in a puff of smoke. Because of this element of dark humor, I wonder if this was considered appropriate for kids back in 1898. Normally, Méliès went for slapstick otherwise, not the comedy in here which is pretty violent for a movie of the day.
