Author Archive: Retro

Gentleman burglar Raffles tries to get his hand on a priceless pearl.

A timid man goes to extreme lengths to get away from his domineering wife.

Robinson Crusoe and Friday fight with hostile natives, and eventually retire to their jungle cottage to relax.

It’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Regular village “cut-ups” are those actor chaps and actresses. They don’t keep still a minute when they get loose on the village green at the Polo Grounds. The band begins to play and the procession starts from Madison Square in “buzz wagons” and keeps moving until they get to the grounds where every actress, actor and actorman in town passes in review before the grandstand of political and social celebrities there assembled. Here they come now: Eddie Foy, Bert Williams, Marie Dressler, Lew Fields, Marshall P. Wilder. George M. Cohan, Victor Moore. Jim Corbett, Tim Sullivan, Joe Humphreys, Emma Carus, Louis Mann, Terry McGovern, Annie Oakley, Irene Franklin and, well, just watch them as they pass by and you can pick them all out. This show takes in every show in Manhattan and the suburbs. There goes the wild men of Borneo in a Salome war dance. [...]

Two bill posters argue as an incompetent guard patrols the area.

A spiral design spins dizzily. It’s replaced by a spinning disk. These two continue in perfect alternation until the end: a spiral design, a disk. Each disk is labelled and can be read as it rotates. The messages, in French, feature puns and whimsical rhymes and alliteration. The final message comments on the spiral motif itself.

Jerry decides he will discontinue the companionship of Slim and shoulder life’s burden single handed. While the latter slumbers Jerry packs the combined wardrobe of the “firm” and attempts to make his exit by way of the window by means of a rope. But Slim is awakened by the noise. For a moment Slim watches the progress of Jerry and then decides to call him back. Halfway down the rope, Jerry is interrupted by his slender companion, who demands that Jerry return. The latter, showing no such desire. Slim cuts the rope and sends Jerry sprawling on the ground. Jerry, however, runs off. But Slim is soon after him. Jerry’s flight is interrupted by a policeman, who becomes suspicious of him. Jerry is arguing with the cop when Slim arrives and soon the policeman is the target for a volley of blows directed at Jerry by Slim, Jerry neatly ducking each blow to finally run [...]

Released under different titles in France–and not surprisingly, often confused with its analogous 1896 movie, “Le Manoir du Diable (1896)”–Georges Méliès’ Haunted Castle is considered, by all means, a remake.