Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it!
I come with gifts! Well, one gift. Okay, a silent movie. Christmas or not, it's Thursday.
But guess what, this movie is about gifts as well, what a coincidence (or not)!
It's "Il Natale di Cretinetti" - "Foolshead's Christmas" in English - from 1911, not to confuse with the film of the same name from 1909.
Here's the plot with spoilers.
Foolshead is going to a Christmas party. Carrying loads of gifts and a tree, he runs into a mailman with just as many parcels.
In the chaos he grabs one wrong parcel, though. It contains three bottles with "ether de peur", "ether de gaîté", and "ether de colère" which cause fear, joy, and rage.
I wonder who concocted those and how, and whom did they intend to have them and for what purpose?
When Foolshead literally falls into the apartment headfirst, the bottles break and give off a revolting smoke, so he hides the box under a table.
The family comes out to welcome him and he hands them some of the gifts, none of which make sense, like a tiny pair of shoes for the father and a rocking horse for the grown-up daughter.
When the father holds a speech which impresses everyone very much, the effects of the ethers begin to manifest, first on Foolshead, then on all the others when the smoke is spreading through the whole flat.
All the guests take turns in being afraid, overjoyed, and angry - shaking, dancing and laughing, and attacking one another, but they don't necessarily show the same reactions at the same time.
Next the smoke makes its way to the kitchen, then to a sculptor whose sculptures first become alive and then break into bits.
The policeman called in by the father is affected, the neighbors are, and the chaos ensuing makes the whole house shake and break apart in a big cloud of rubble and smoke.
Merry Christmas, Foolshead!
André Deed was a French film pioneer, actor, scriptwriter, and director.
Deed was the first silent movie star of his country. After being a singer and acrobat, he worked in film for Georges Méliès, then for the production company Pathé-Frères. During that time, he developed the character of Boireau.
In 1909, he was invited to Italy where he starred as Cretinetti in more than 90 shorts. In 1912, he went back to France making more shorts as Boireau, and three years later he returned to Italy to revive the Cretinetti series.
Due to the First World War and the American film industry taking over, his career came to an end and he was mostly forgotten.
Deed was known for camera-trick gags (influenced by the work of Méliès) and slapstick.
His Cretinetti shorts were internationally successful and other countries adapted the name to their languages, Foolshead in English, Gribouille in French, Müller in German (except for this film).
Do you remember Max Linder from one of my recent posts? In a blog I read that Linder and Deed were the "yin and yang of early film comedy", Linder charming and elegant, Deed a frantic idiot creating chaos and destruction. Foolshead certainly did that in this short, albeit involuntarily!
If you like a bit of slapstick, this is a fun little film to watch.
Oh, and I love those dresses!
Sources:
1. Anthony Balducci: Musings on André Deed. On: Anthony Balducci's Journal, November 10, 2014
2. André Deed on German Wikipedia
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