Melies Encore Problem

Derwiddian · Post by **Derwiddian** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 1:03 pm

I've been working my way slowly through Flicker Alley's new disk.

Has anyone else noticed that what Lobster/Flicker Alley terms an 1897 "new discovery", namely a film called An Hallucinated Alchemist, is really just a colored and shortened print of The Mysterious Retort of 1906?

Until I realized that fact, I had been puzzled by the film. Not only was there a feeling of deja vu, but there was a slow dissolve, which Melies had not perfected until around 1904. As far as I know, the real 1897 Hallucinated Alchemist is still lost.

I realize that Flicker Alley is just a distributor, and they are by no means alone in publishing errors in film identifications and dates, but I would feel more comfortable if there was just a bit more scholarship involved in the distribution process.

urbanora · Post by **urbanora** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 1:42 pm

Wow, well spotted. I missed that entirely, though I was mightily impressed by the so-called HALLUCINATED ALCHEMIST and thought it scarcely believable for 1897, but after LE MANOIR DU DIABLE from 1896 I guess I felt anything was possible. You worry what else has been misidentified.

DShepFilm · Post by **DShepFilm** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 1:49 pm

You are correct about the mistake. The film came misidentified from a certain prestigous archive. No one who worked on this project noticed it until Laurent Melies pointed it out to us. Blush.

There is another mistake as well. Several scores by Frederick Hodges were accidentally credited to Antonio Coppola. Frederick's music is heard with "The Mystical Flame," "The Doctor's Secret," and "Fantastic Butterflies."

I guess this proves we are all human and thus fallible.

David Shepard

WaverBoy · Post by **WaverBoy** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 2:58 pm

I just picked this up, and want to extend a heartfelt thanks to Mssrs. Shepard, Bromberg, Masino, and of course Melies. A wonderful, thoroughly unexpected supplemental release to their amazing earlier box set that I feel extremely fortunate to have. (Didn't realize that ALCHEMIST was misidentified, because I hadn't gotten 'round to THE MYSTERIOUS RETORT in the first box yet. Fantastic film; I'll be putting RETORT in straightaway after I get home from work tonight!)

After being slightly disappointed that LE MANOIR DU DIABLE, credited as the first horrorish vampirish devilish film in cinema history, wasn't included on the big box after learning that it still existed, here it is in my hot little hands, along with a couple dozen other treasures to boot. I've wanted to see it ever since I read about it in Gifford's and Aylesworth's horror film books as a kid. And it did not disappoint. One question for Mr. Shepard: wasn't the original English title for this THE DEVIL'S CASTLE, and not THE HAUNTED CASTLE, which is also the English title of a film in the big box that some thought was LE MANOIR DU DIABLE?

Hmmm...I thought I recognized the distinct stylings of Mr. Hodges on those films. Love his stuff.

By the by, I heard Marty Scorsese is working on a film adaptation of The Invention Of Hugo Cabret, a project about which I am EXTREMELY excited...

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111801 ... id=13&cs=1

milefilms · Post by **milefilms** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 7:52 pm

WaverBoy wrote:I

By the by, I heard Marty Scorsese is working on a film adaptation of The Invention Of Hugo Cabret, a project about which I am EXTREMELY excited...

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111801 ... id=13&cs=1

Scorsese is connected to a dozen films at a time (including a supposed remake of Taxi Driver with Lars Van Trier), but this one about Hugo Cabret happens to be true.

R Michael Pyle · Post by **R Michael Pyle** » Fri Feb 26, 2010 6:06 am

WaverBoy wrote:
By the by, I heard Marty Scorsese is working on a film adaptation of The Invention Of Hugo Cabret, a project about which I am EXTREMELY excited...http://www.variety.com/article/VR111801 ... id=13&cs=1

My son gave me the picture book when it was first released. I "read" through it in about one and a half hours and was simply fascinated by it. I can't wait to see it "visualized" on film. If done as well as the book, it'll be glorious. I could imagine it done by Ealing Studios back in the late '40's as an almost noirish kind of thing, maybe with Edward Chapman in the lead, but I'm now dating myself and putting British stamps on a French project - now being done by an American!