The Cook in Trouble

The cook in the title is trying hard to do his job. He has helpers who are useless. He is doing all the work, so he is justifiably angry. While he tries to work, an old beggar come along and begs for food. The cook is upset and throws him out three times. It turns out that this beggar is, in reality, a sorcerer. He puts a spell on the kitchen and soon people dressed as cats begin to cavort all over the place. It is a study in chaos with no direction. I just couldn't find much in this film that gave me a WOW factor.

Cook In Trouble, The (1904)

*** (out of 4)

aka Sorcellerie culinaire

One of Melies' better films, this one has a mean cook throwing out an old, homeless man asking for food but it turns out this man is really a sorcerer. The sorcerer unleashes some little devil-like creatures to cause the cook to go crazy. There's some early examples of slapstick on display here and these scenes are the real highlight of the movie as the creatures run around from one side of the shop to the next just making the cook chase them. The special effects hold up pretty well as we see things appear and disappear.

This short silent film is part of the DVD collection entitled "The Magic of Méliès" and is the fourth volume of THE MOVIES BEGIN series from Kino Video. Unlike copies of Méliès' films that are posted on the internet, the prints for these short films are exceptionally crisp and clean and feature (with the exception of this film) wonderful musical scores. Oddly, though, is that aside from a few films such as THE BLACK IMP and THE IMPOSSIBLE VOYAGE, most of the shorts chosen for this DVD are actually not among the best of Méliès' films--having a strong tendency to show is "stagy" material as opposed to the films that have elaborate sets and plots. In particular, my favorites such as BARBE-BLEUE and LE VOYAGE DANS LE LUNE (his most famous film) are not on this DVD.

This particular short is kind of cute and it's about a cook who is being terrorized by little imps created by an angry sorcerer. The sorcerer sicks these mischievous creatures on the poor cook and they make his life miserable--with lots of slapstick jumping and falling and chasing. Not exactly deep stuff and far from his best, this is still an interesting and entertaining film after more than 100 years.

This chaotic little cautionary tale about the dangers of being unkind to beggars (who might just be wizards in disguise, for some reason known only to them) is similar to other films made by Melies from this period. He made a similar film in which demons appear from a wishing well either the same year or the year before (it's title escapes me).

As others have quite rightly commented, this isn't one of Melies' best although it is still enjoyable enough, and much better than most films being produced at the beginning of the 20th Century. What is apparent is that Melies was not yet comfortable with directing the viewer's attention. There's too much going on here at times, meaning the audience isn't really sure where to look. The pace is fast and frantic, but it gets a little repetitive after a while and you're left wondering why Melies felt the relatively slight material was worthy of a whole four minutes.

A bearded cook and his three helpers are busy preparing something good to eat. Another helper arrives a sack of supplies, likely more food. Obviously, this group is not starving. While the helpers put away the shopping bag, an old beggar enters. The beggar takes off his hat and motions that he is hungry, but the bearded cook kicks him in the derrière. When the cook turns his back, the beggar turns into a wizard. He casts a spell on the cook. Devilish beings join the wizard in wreaking havoc for the greedy cook. They set out to ruin whatever is cooking, with special effects from filmmaker Georges Melies...

****** Sorcellerie culinaire (1904) Georges Melies ~ Georges Melies