The public has always had an interest in horror and the macabre, and film horror, like a lot of film beginnings, has its roots in theatre and public spectacle. From Greek tragedy employing elements of horror to the spectacle of public executions to the oral traditions of legends and folklore involving monsters, we have always liked to be frightened and, perhaps, dance with death, but from the safety of the audience.
Throughout history there have been many examples of how we have entertained ourselves with horror -- through stage, literature, and spectacle. But I believe the beginnings for film horror lie in the age of the magic lantern and phantasmagoria. Phantasmagoria was a type of horror theatre, which was popular during the Romantic movement of the late 18th and first half of the 19th century. For example, Marie Tussaud began exhibiting her work at this
time, displaying horrors like wax figures of the victims of the French Revolution, which she herself was lucky to survive. Madame Tussaud’s original wax figure of Jean-Paul Marat, having just been stabbed, still survives. She was actually tasked with taking a cast of, what The Guardian describes as, “his rapidly decomposing body, just after he was stabbed in the bath by Charlotte Corday” (Carey, 2018). We think we’re violent now in terms of entertainment, but I can’t imagine of a wax figure of someone recently tragic, like Princess Diana, being show in her death throes, post-car crash, in a modern Madame Tussaud’s.
The partner to this phantasmagoric spectacle is the magic lantern. Magic lanterns were a 17th century-invented image projector which projected images utilizing prints or paintings, transparent plates, and a light source. Madame Tussaud partnered for a time with a magic lantern illusionist.
We’ve always been fascinated by the dark and unknown and entertained by spectacles meant to scare us. So, as magic lanterns were, in some ways, a forerunner of film cameras, film and projections using light and images have always been closely linked. That magic lanterns were often used to heighten the strangeness and horror spectacle of phantasmagoric theatre, illustrates that magic lantern shows and horror in film are directly related. And, indeed, the first horror film we are going to discuss, was directed by Georges Méliès, an artist and illusionist who had produced magic lantern shows before becoming a filmmaker. Our first horror film on the list is from 1896, Le Manoir du Diable by Georges Méliès.
The Year Is 1896
For context, what was happening in 1896 in the United States of America? Grover Cleveland was the U.S. President and Adlai Stevenson his Vice-President. (If you're confused, so was I -- but the unsuccessful Democratic candidate of the 1950's of whom I think when I hear this name was this Adlai Stevenson's grandson.) Utah became the 45th state. The Gilded Age was coming to an end in the U.S., and the Progressive Era, with its social reforms, was beginning. The Yaqui Uprising took place, which was one of the last conflicts in the American Indian Wars and involved the Mexican military and Mexican revolutionaries. The economic depression from the Panic of 1893 was finally easing.
Where is 1896 in film history and how films are relating to the public?
This is the same year as The Kiss, which you will probably recognize, if you’re familiar with early film history. At around 20 seconds long, The Kiss is, indeed, a very short film and was, according to the Library of Congress, produced as an Edison Vitascope. (Library of Congress, 2022) Directed by German-born director William Heise for Thomas Edison, The Kiss is a filmed version of the comedic kiss actors May Irwin and John C. Rice performed in the Broadway musical comedy, The Widow Jones.
While the short film, The Kiss, does not itself include any racist imagery, it should be noted that the comedy this scene is from is rife with racist caricatures and offensive language. Indeed, May Irwin, the actress who starred in The Kiss, was known as a singer of racist songs known as coon songs. Her popular hit song from The Widow Jones, “The Bully Song”, is sung in stereotypical Southern Black dialect, and is replete with offensive language, including the N-word. (Trevathan, 1896) Full performances of this song can easily be found on YouTube, but I will not link to them here due to their blatant racist lyrics.
While The Kiss was probably considered a bit risqué for the times, as this same kiss was already being performed on the Broadway stage as part of a light musical comedy, I can’t imagine it being more than a slightly scandalous bit intended to drum up publicity. After all, sex always sells. However, the Los Angeles Times also reports that: “As late as 1900, an American etiquette guide declared public kissing 'a reprehensible custom and should not be tolerated in good society.'" Emily Post, in statements in the 1920s, declared that when a couple meet in a restaurant, he should “on no account kiss her.” (Whelan, 1989)
What else was happening in 1896?
This is also the year the Lumière Brothers' The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station debuted -- and, if rumors about the audience's reaction to the fear of seeing this train coming towards them really caused the shock and panic some have claimed, could be considered a horror film. However, I wonder if U.S. audiences would have had such a response, considering 1896 is also the year the infamous "Crash at Crush" spectacle was held near Waco, Texas, where two unmanned trains were crashed into one another head-on at high speed. Both trains' boilers exploded, and two spectators were killed. Composer Scott Joplin even composed a piece to commemorate the event. (The Ragtime Webring, 2022)
Le Manoir du Diable (The House of the Devil) (1896) dir. Georges Méliès
This film was directed, written, and produced by French artist, illusionist, and filmmaker Georges Méliès, within his first year or so of making films. If you’re into film history, you’ll know who Georges Méliès is. If not, simply Google A Trip to the Moon, and you will
undoubtedly recognize the image of the Man in the Moon with a space capsule crashed into his eye.
Le Manoir du Diable, or in English The House of the Devil, is also known as The Haunted Castle. However, this is also the title of a remake Méliès produced the following year, which is a remake of this film, The House of the Devil. Interestingly, the remade film, The Haunted Castle, was the first to be hand-colored by the Thuilliers’ lab. The Thuilliers were mother and daughter colorists who ran a lab where early films were hand colored. They most notably colored Méliès’ 1902 film, A Trip to the Moon.
While I do not believe that this film is portraying a vampire, but instead Satan’s agent, Mephistopheles, there are many vampiric elements that are included in the film that would become associated with vampires. As this film predates Bram Stoker’s Dracula by a year, I do believe that perhaps Stoker himself was influenced by this film and included some of the elements Méliès presents in this film in his creation of Dracula.
The House of the Devil was made 6 years prior to Méliès’ best-known masterpiece, A Trip to the Moon. If you are curious how A Trip to the Moon still inspires our current pop culture and directly influences modern films, please look at Scorsese’s 2011 film, Hugo, and The Smashing Pumpkins’ 1996 music video for “Tonight, Tonight”. This film has also been subtly referenced in everything from Rob Zombie to Katy Perry. But Hugo and the “Tonight, Tonight” music video are probably two of the best love letters to a film that I can name.
Georges Méliès: Cinema Pioneer
Méliès was a magician and stage actor, and, also, a caricaturist and political cartoonist, born to a wealthy family in 1861 in Paris. His father and mother ran a business manufacturing high-end boots. He didn’t do well in school, instead being struck by what Méliès called “an artistic passion". (Solomon, 2012) Like many interested in the arts, his family did not approve of his career choice, or his choice in marriage, for that matter, and therefore, did not support, financially or emotionally, his endeavors.
Living in London for a year, beginning in 1884, Méliès became more involved in magic and illusion at the Egyptian Hall in Picadilly. But trading shoe business for show business, he sold his share of the family business, which had been left to him and his two brothers after his father’s retirement. (The Georges Melies Project, 2022)
In 1888, he took over the lease of the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin was one of the most influential illusionists in modern history and is considered the father of modern stage magic. Indeed, inspired by Robert-Houdin, Harry Houdini took his stage name, Houdini, from Robert-Houdin. But Robert-Houdin had died in 1871 and the theatre had found itself facing financial difficulties and a diminished reputation. Méliès, having been greatly influenced by Robert-Houdin, wanted to renew the theatre’s reputation as one providing innovative entertainment. Refurbishing the then-over 40-year-old theatre, and trying to reinvigorate it with new life, Méliès ended the shows he produced here at this time with a spectacle, initially involving a magic lantern show.
In late December of 1895, the Lumière Brothers put on commercial demonstrations of their
newly-invented Cinématographe, which, with its portability and sharper images, was considered an upgrade to Edison’s Kinetograph. Edison’s Kinetograph inspired the Lumière Brothers in their design, but while Edison’s Kinetograph weighed more than half a ton and was battery-driven, the Lumière Brothers’ Cinématographe weighed less than 20 pounds and was hand-cranked. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the Lumière Brothers’ Cinématographe: “functioned as a camera and printer as well as a projector, [and] ran at the economical speed of 16 frames per second”. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2022) The Lumière Brothers’ film, The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station, debuted the month following the first commercial demonstrations of the Cinématographe. Notably, while Edison’s Kinetograph had to be viewed by an individual through an eye piece, which was basically an early version of a viewfinder, the Lumière Brothers’ Cinématographe had a projector, allowing multiple spectators to view the images at once.
Méliès attempted to buy a Cinématographe from the Lumière Brothers, but they were protective of their invention. Anyone familiar with Edison’s unethical actions regarding others’ inventions will probably understand why. Indeed, Edison’s next mechanical upgrade for film production, the Vitascope, which was used for the previously mentioned film The Kiss, was marketed as Edison’s own invention, though it was co-invented by Charles Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat. Jenkins and Armat’s original invention, the Phantoscope, was first publicly demonstrated 3 months prior to the first commercial demonstrations of the Lumière Brothers’ Cinématographe. Edison then bought and renamed the Phantoscope the Edison Vitascope, and with this invention brought projection to the United States. The Edison Vitascope was first publicly demonstrated 4 months after the first commercial demonstrations of the Lumière Brothers’ Cinématographe. (Library of Congress, 2022)
Unable to procure a Cinématographe, Méliès bought a Theatrograph, also known as an animatograph, which was the first commercially available 35mm film projector. He installed this in the Théâtre Robert-Houdin to replace the magic lantern as the finale of the show. Méliès, with two other individuals, ended up patenting his own camera-projector in 1896, which was developed by reversing the mechanical principles of the animatograph, though this was quickly outdated by more sophisticated projectors. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2022) His early films were influenced by his stage career as an illusionist—they contained magic and tricks of photography. He made over 70 films in 1896 alone, which like a lot of early films, were basically experimental.
Making The House of the Devil
The House of the Devil is a little over three minutes long, has a plot (unlike Train and The Kiss). It is based on Faust, with the antagonist, Mephistopheles, as the main character, and set in the Renaissance. Both Kit Marlowe’s Faust adaptation, Dr. Faustus, written shortly before Marlowe’s murder in 1593, and Goethe’s 1808 play, feature Mephistopheles as an agent of the devil who strikes a deal with the eponymous Faust regarding the bartering of Faust’s soul. In both Marlowe’s and Goethe’s adaptations, Mephistopheles can change form. But in Méliès’ film short, Mephistopheles is not as much a cunning devil’s agent leading Faust astray, as a stock character—a devilish prankster determined to cause fear and trouble, allowing Méliès, ever the illusionist, plenty of opportunities to create myriad cinematic magic tricks. As for the look of the film, I do not think it contains the unique quality found in later Méliès’ films like A Trip to the Moon or The Kingdom of the Fairies.
Méliès himself starred as Mephistopheles. The lady in Roman dress was played by his longtime mistress, and later wife, Jehanne D’Alcy. Both Méliès and D’Alcy are characters in the film, Hugo, where they are played by Sir Ben Kingsley and Helen McCrory, respectively.
The sets for this and other Méliès films were painted in different shades of gray, to experiment with how the black and white film would pick up the colors. However, according to Dr. Richard Neupert, in his book, French Film History, 1895-1946, various shades of gray were utilized so that costumes could appear more prominent and, regarding light grays, to facilitate the prints being sold at a premium by enabling color to be painted over the black and white prints. (Neupert, 2022)
This film was filmed on his property in Montreuil, where he built a film studio in late 1896. The studio was like a greenhouse, with glass walls and ceiling, to utilize the available natural light—as artificial lights for motion picture production were not introduced until 1903, in the form of mercury vapor tubes. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2022) This is also where A Trip to the Moon was filmed.
The great Victorian stage actor, Sir Henry Irving (the first actor to receive a knighthood),
starred in a production at the Lyceum in London in 1885, but based on images I have seen of Irving as Mephistopheles contained in the National Trust’s Collections, I do not believe the look of Mephistopheles to be based on Irving. However, in Méliès’ hand-colored remake of this film, which he produced the following year, 1897, Mephistopheles’ clothing is a strong red, similarly to Henry Irving’s costume.
The second part of this transcript will be posted soon, with more supplemental pictures and videos. If you enjoy this post, we will attempt to post these transcripts for every episode, although that may prove difficult as the films we cover move out of the public domain.
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Sources
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