La Maison ensorcelée (1907) The House of Ghosts (Pathé)

www.imdb.com/ti...
Director: Segundo de Chomón
Production Company: Pathé frères
Country: France
Notes: "Sometimes the world of similarly titled early shorts causes a certain amount of confusion, and this is surely a prime example of that. The movie about three travelers, identified on TH-cam and at IMDb alike as LA MAISON HANTÉE (1906), is in fact no such thing. Rather, it's de Chomón's LA MAISON ENSORCELÉE, released in December 1907, which is in turn as blatant a scene-for-scene rip-off of another movie as you'll ever find, the original being J. Stuart Blackton's THE HAUNTED HOTEL (1907). By contrast, de Chomón's 1906 short LA MAISON HANTÉE was a very different beast indeed; it ran only around two minutes and was a much less ambitious trick film. To quote the synopsis in the February 1906 Pathé Supplement in its entirety:
'A servant putting the dining room in order is suddenly surprised when two large vases on either side of the fireplace transform into dancers, with the furniture also joining in with their dance. Horrified, he runs off to fetch the mistress of the house - only to find everything restored to its normal state when they return together. She treats him as if he's an idiot and orders him to finish laying the table. Thereafter, the master of the house arrives for his evening meal, but the soup has scarcely been served when the table starts to revolve before rising up towards the ceiling with ferocious force. The two would-be diners attempt to pull the table back down, but are violently repelled and thrown to the ground, completely stupefied by events.'
The confusion of LA MAISON HANTÉE (1906) and LA MAISON ENSORCELÉE (1907) actually predates the Internet. Although Carlos Fernandez Cuenca mentions LA MAISON HANTÉE in his groundbreaking 1972 book-length study Segundo de Chomón - maestro de la fantasia y de la tecnica, 1871 - 1929, what he actually describes sounds like LA MAISON ENSORCELÉE. The Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin long claimed to have a print of LA MAISON HANTÉE in its collection, but de Chomón specialist Juan-Gabriel Tharrats could locate only a copy of LA MAISON ENSORCELÉE there and was otherwise unable to find a surviving print of LA MAISON HANTÉE in any archive; in his 2009 study Segundo de Chomón - un pionnier méconnu du cinéma européen, his entry on LA MAISON HANTÉE extends merely to citing Cuenca's comments from 1972... followed by a large question-mark! The Gaumont-Pathé Archives are likewise unaware of any surviving locatable print of LA MAISON HANTÉE.
I looked a little further into LA MAISON HANTÉE, and it seems that the British Film Institute at one time had an incomplete print, which was described in detail in the National Film Archive Catalogue from 1948; however, there is no mention of this incomplete print in recent decades, and the BFI currently claims to have no holdings of any kind on this title... so it may be that this too was lost to the ages many years ago.
However, there's no doubt from the write-up that it was the 1906 short, no matter what became of it:
'No main title. A servant is cleaning the sitting room with a feather duster. A woman [played by a man] enters. The servant sits down to read. He then 'dusts' the woman and she leaves. He dusts a shelf on which are two statues of young blackamoors. The figures begin to dance and the chairs move. He fetches the woman in fear. When she returns the figures have disappeared (to be replaced by vases of flowers) and the chairs are stable. The woman's husband (?) enters. The servant brings in a table laden with crockery and begins to serve the meal. There is a large lamp in the centre of the table. The table levitates. The woman holds on to the table leg. Her husband holds on to her legs as she disappears upwards and is left holding her skirt (138ft). Incomplete.' " - Dr. Robert J. Kiss
More rare films here: filmsbytheyear...
Join the Films by the Year Facebook Group: / filmsbytheyear
Please support Films by the Year: www.paypal.com...

[@1959fiorella]

De Chomón, un genio della tecnica illusionistica. Effetti speciali perfetti ( la tavola apparecchiata, capolavoro) anche oggi..realizzati con un'attrezzatura da laboratorio fotografico.

[@gatamiau4463]

Su metraje es tan corto?….Es una maravilla..Gracias por editarlo..

[@Bazookfrederic]

Ce qui est particulièrement bien vu dans ce film, c'est que les humains -bien que plongés dans un univers non-humain- continuent à se comporter tout à fait normalement en humains, comme si de rien n'était, c'est-à-dire nonobstant l'épouvante. Grande leçon dont s'emparera le cinéma de l'horreur, il n'y a que deux façons pour les héros de cinéma de lutter contre l'épouvante : devenir soi-même épouvantable ou se réfugier dans les gestes quotidiens. Mais le cinéma de l'épouvante ne pourra prétendre à l'humour qu'en retenant cette seconde voie ; il faut que l'humain soit surpris dans sa dérisoire existence quotidienne pour que l'épouvante atteigne au risible. On peut apprécier le suspens et le crescendo quasi insoutenable de la peur (Shining -Kubrick 1980) mais alors on s'éloigne du burlesque. Le burlesque n'est parfaitement réussi que dans un équilibre entre la mécanique de la normalité et la mécanique de l'anormalité, équilibre qui devra faire la part belle à la surprise, à l'inattendu, voire à la lutte entre ces deux déterminations de l'action (Buster Keaton en est le principal génie nous semble-t-il).
fredc.over-blog.com/2023/01/histoire-du-cinema-23-burlesque-et-epouvante-la-maison-hantee-segundo-de-chomon-1906.html

[@francescocennamo854]

Wow!

[@a-project-96]

посмеялся, спасибо

[@notmadheardthingsinhell8079]

If the 3 Stooges took cocaine.

[@gregorkrause]

a comical less scary haunted house film lol.

[@tonisoriano5823]

Is this film from 1906, 1907 or 1908? There is an american version from 1907, so it's from 1906 or 1907, maybe.

[@FilmsbytheYear]

Check the description.

[@ippostronghand]

يوسف عبدالله 😁

[@ChannelZero1031]

Where is the rest?

[@FilmsbytheYear]

As far as I know this is complete. The synopsis given at the following site mentions that after the witch tosses them back into the countryside the trio leave under their umbrella which seems to be missing but it's probably only a few seconds. The same site indicates the length as 475 ft. which would be about 7 minutes assuming a speed of 18 fps. It seems that the frame rate is a bit too fast in this copy which accounts for it being only 6 minutes. www.fondation-jeromeseydoux-pathe.com/document/maison-ensorcelee-la/5fdd2ab3af99ca9e7f27c48f?q=La%20Maison%20ensorcelee&pos=2. This colorized version is probably closer to the correct speed: th-cam.com/video/E7oqe0SwaR4/w-d-xo.htmlsi=VnE5fQv4VI2wOJx2