Here's a film within a film! In 1907, the Gaumont Films company in France made a slapstick comedy (silent, of course) with a title that would translate from the French as 'A gentleman who ate some bull'. I'm aware of at least one (incomplete) print of that original film, which was screened in October 2007 at the silent-movie festival in Pordenone, Italy. That print is in Australia's National Sound and Film Archive.
In 1933, a Ukrainian named Eugene Deslow got hold of that film -- not the Australian print, though -- and added an introduction plus a soundtrack, the latter consisting of commentary narrated by the single-named actor Bétove. (A possible pun on 'Beethoven'?) I'll describe the original 1907 movie first before getting to that narration.
A Parisian hostess serves her dinner guests a dish containing bull-flesh. It goes down a treat for everyone except one particular gent. (He must be a Taurus.) Conveniently, there are a pair of cattle horns on the hostess's wall; this man takes them down, attaches them to his forehead, and begins pawing the carpet as if he were a bull. He charges the hostess and her maid, terrifies the guests, wrecks the house and then rushes out into the street, where he terrorises the neighbours.
Well, we all know that the best bullfighters come from Spain. There aren't many Montmartre matadors. A telegrapher sends an urgent message to Madrid: calling all bull-fighters! A veritable parade of matadors come poncing through the streets of Paris, ready to do battle with the bull-man. SPOILER NOW. After a slapstick bullfight, he is subdued and arrested.
Apart from the bizarre premise, there are some interesting visual compositions here. It's very strange (and funny) to see a whole squadron of bull-fighters marching through the streets. Most impressive is the sequence in the telegrapher's office. Here we see some early stop-motion animation, as each of the letters of the Morse code transmission (in French) appears on strings (telegraph wires?) suspended across the top of the set.
Now, the 1933 version: Deslaw clearly wanted to put his imprint on this footage, but the result is not entirely a success. As I listened to Deslaw's wise-cracking commentary (voiced sarcastically by Bétove), I was reminded of those 1960s silent-film compilations by Robert Youngson, in which Youngson substituted his own comments for the original title cards. I was also reminded of 'MSFT3K': a series which I despise, in which a couple of clever-dicks make fun of the previous crude efforts of film-makers who did the best they could.
It's a VERY cheap shot to ridicule a 1907 film for its crudity, but that's basically what Deslaw is doing here. I'll rate the original 1907 film 6 out of 10: this 1933 reworking rates barely a 4.
In 1933, a Ukrainian named Eugene Deslow got hold of that film -- not the Australian print, though -- and added an introduction plus a soundtrack, the latter consisting of commentary narrated by the single-named actor Bétove. (A possible pun on 'Beethoven'?) I'll describe the original 1907 movie first before getting to that narration.
A Parisian hostess serves her dinner guests a dish containing bull-flesh. It goes down a treat for everyone except one particular gent. (He must be a Taurus.) Conveniently, there are a pair of cattle horns on the hostess's wall; this man takes them down, attaches them to his forehead, and begins pawing the carpet as if he were a bull. He charges the hostess and her maid, terrifies the guests, wrecks the house and then rushes out into the street, where he terrorises the neighbours.
Well, we all know that the best bullfighters come from Spain. There aren't many Montmartre matadors. A telegrapher sends an urgent message to Madrid: calling all bull-fighters! A veritable parade of matadors come poncing through the streets of Paris, ready to do battle with the bull-man. SPOILER NOW. After a slapstick bullfight, he is subdued and arrested.
Apart from the bizarre premise, there are some interesting visual compositions here. It's very strange (and funny) to see a whole squadron of bull-fighters marching through the streets. Most impressive is the sequence in the telegrapher's office. Here we see some early stop-motion animation, as each of the letters of the Morse code transmission (in French) appears on strings (telegraph wires?) suspended across the top of the set.
Now, the 1933 version: Deslaw clearly wanted to put his imprint on this footage, but the result is not entirely a success. As I listened to Deslaw's wise-cracking commentary (voiced sarcastically by Bétove), I was reminded of those 1960s silent-film compilations by Robert Youngson, in which Youngson substituted his own comments for the original title cards. I was also reminded of 'MSFT3K': a series which I despise, in which a couple of clever-dicks make fun of the previous crude efforts of film-makers who did the best they could.
It's a VERY cheap shot to ridicule a 1907 film for its crudity, but that's basically what Deslaw is doing here. I'll rate the original 1907 film 6 out of 10: this 1933 reworking rates barely a 4.
