User Reviews

Charles Perrault's famous fairy tale "Bluebeard," about a murderous nobleman with a long succession of "missing" wives, first appeared in his collection "Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye" in 1697. The story's origins are not know, but scholars believe the tale may be based on a real-life serial killer or wife-murderer, possibly Gilles de Rais or Conomor the Accursed. Either way, Perrault's tale went on to inspire numerous other books, poems, films, television shows and theatrical plays, as well as over thirty operas! This is the first actual filmed attempt of at least a dozen. Other include René Betrand's 1935 animated film BARBE-BLEUE, Ernst Lubitsch 1938 black comedy BLUEBEARD'S EIGHTH WIFE (with Gary Cooper), the good 1944 PRC effort BLUEBEARD (with John Carradine) and the sleazy 1972 exploitation flick of the same name starring Richard Burton. References to the tale have shown up in everything from Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" to Stephen King's "The Shining" and influenced novels from the likes of Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood and Kurt Vonnegut, to name just a few.

Méliès' nine-minute film is clearly one of the better adaptations, if not the best, which manages to capture both a lighthearted fairly tale essence and a darker Gothic horror feel. Yes, despite being listed in the "fantasy" genre here on IMDb, this is also very much something in the horror film genre and should be considered as such here. The first scene is a two-minute take of Bluebeard, a burly guy with a long, bushy beard (played by the director), entering a room and picking out a new bride, who obviously isn't too thrilled at being selected for obvious reasons. Then it cuts to the kitchen where a succession of people filter in and out carrying trays of food. The delightful and somewhat expressionistic part is that the food items are exaggerated in size and take at least two people to carry! There's a giant turkey, giant pig, giant cakes and a giant champagne bottle being marched through the kitchen while workers prepare dinner and get in a little food fight. The third act is a brief wedding banquet and celebration.

Then the film retires to Bluebeard and his new wife's home, where Méliès gets to demonstrate some of his wonderful special effects work as a horned demon pops out of a book, runs around and, in a cloud of smoke, jumps back into the book. Bluebeard's bride uses a key to get into a secret room and fumbles around in the dark until she locates the window. Upon opening the shutter she realizes she's stumbled upon her new husband's seven previous wives... who are all hanging dead by the neck! Keys grow, dance around and shrink, ghosts disappear, reappear and rise from the floor, there's a swordfight (and even an impalement!) and other very cool little touches crammed into the 9-minute run time. The sets and backdrops, as well as some of the props, are obviously cardboard or wood, but they're very detailed and give this an appropriate storybook feel. All in all, this is a wonderful and classic short that fans of fantasy and horror should definitely check out. In fact, any fan of fantasy or horror need to check out as many of Méliès' shorts as possible because you'll get to see just where so many of the technical innovations and genre clichés originate from. For 1901, this must have truly amazed audiences, and even today, this retains every bit of its entertainment value.

It's certainly difficult to make a silent, black-and-white movie about a title character that already has a color in his name. And I have to say Méliès did not fail entirely in his attempt here, but it's still not a really good achievement by any means in my opinion. There was so much going on all the time on the screen in this one that it was actually difficult to follow and only understand the very basic elements of what exactly was happening. This film runs for almost 10 minutes, which was fairly long for that era, but not entirely uncommon for Méliès whose films became longer and longer by 1901. All in all, still I have to say I was not really impressed watching this and I hoped it would be better looking at its IMDb-rating. Not recommended.