The automobile's role in trick films seems to have originated with Cecil Hepworth's "Explosion of a Motor Car" (1900). Méliès had previously made fun of it and its dangerous drivers in "The Impossible Voyage" (Le Voyage à travers l'impossible) (1904). And, the year following this film, "Paris to Monte Carlo" (or "The Adventurous Automobile Trip"), R.W. Paul and Walter Booth made perhaps the gem of the sub-genre with "The '?' Motorist". Additionally, these films are a precursor to the Keystone comedies.
Extra-filmic narration (as viewers at the time would have had) would have been helpful in viewing this film, for without John Frazer's synopsis in his book "Artificially Arranged Scenes", I wouldn't have known that this film lampoons the then King of Belgium, Leopold II, who was renowned for being involved in car accidents. (He's even more infamous for the 10 million casualties under his Congo Free State, but this film isn't about that.) "Paris to Monte Carlo" begins in Paris, where the King decides to travel in his automobile to Monte Carlo. In just the second scene, after filling up the tank by pouring boxes of gasoline down a funnel, he reverses and runs a pedestrian over. This is followed by the comic routine of blowing the man back up with air pumps. Another man explodes because of impact with the automobile.
Originally, "Paris to Monte Carlo" was made for the Folies Bergère, and it had over 300 performances there. According to Richard Abel ("The Ciné Goes to Town"), however, "these costly, hand-colored spectacle films returned less profit to Méliès than expected". Nevertheless, that Méliès had introduced cinema to such prestigious music halls seems to me to have been a significant, if not oft acknowledged, advance in the artistic and cultural acceptance of the art form. It was a step up from the fairgrounds, as well as the vaudeville theatres in America. Moreover, "Paris to Monte Carlo" is a slightly amusing film to this day, and displays a good sense of continuity and pacing, as the action continues in the same direction across scenes, including a miniature shot of the automobile crossing mountains.
Extra-filmic narration (as viewers at the time would have had) would have been helpful in viewing this film, for without John Frazer's synopsis in his book "Artificially Arranged Scenes", I wouldn't have known that this film lampoons the then King of Belgium, Leopold II, who was renowned for being involved in car accidents. (He's even more infamous for the 10 million casualties under his Congo Free State, but this film isn't about that.) "Paris to Monte Carlo" begins in Paris, where the King decides to travel in his automobile to Monte Carlo. In just the second scene, after filling up the tank by pouring boxes of gasoline down a funnel, he reverses and runs a pedestrian over. This is followed by the comic routine of blowing the man back up with air pumps. Another man explodes because of impact with the automobile.
Originally, "Paris to Monte Carlo" was made for the Folies Bergère, and it had over 300 performances there. According to Richard Abel ("The Ciné Goes to Town"), however, "these costly, hand-colored spectacle films returned less profit to Méliès than expected". Nevertheless, that Méliès had introduced cinema to such prestigious music halls seems to me to have been a significant, if not oft acknowledged, advance in the artistic and cultural acceptance of the art form. It was a step up from the fairgrounds, as well as the vaudeville theatres in America. Moreover, "Paris to Monte Carlo" is a slightly amusing film to this day, and displays a good sense of continuity and pacing, as the action continues in the same direction across scenes, including a miniature shot of the automobile crossing mountains.
