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The Drunken Mattress

Original title: Le matelas épileptique
  • 1906
  • Not Rated
  • 9m
IMDb RATING
6.2/10
289
YOUR RATING
The Drunken Mattress (1906)
ComedyShort

Comedy is benefited by originality. In this Alice Guy short, an alcoholic is inadvertently sewn in to a mattress. With that unique premise, havoc ensues.Comedy is benefited by originality. In this Alice Guy short, an alcoholic is inadvertently sewn in to a mattress. With that unique premise, havoc ensues.Comedy is benefited by originality. In this Alice Guy short, an alcoholic is inadvertently sewn in to a mattress. With that unique premise, havoc ensues.

  • Directors
    • Romeo Bosetti
    • Alice Guy
  • Star
    • Romeo Bosetti
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.2/10
    289
    YOUR RATING
    • Directors
      • Romeo Bosetti
      • Alice Guy
    • Star
      • Romeo Bosetti
    • 2User reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Photos2

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    Top cast1

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    Romeo Bosetti
    Romeo Bosetti
    • Directors
      • Romeo Bosetti
      • Alice Guy
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews2

    6.2289
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    Featured reviews

    3planktonrules

    This one's a mess and doesn't make much sense.

    A family lives in an apartment in the city (which you can see out the window). The mattress is in need of mending and in the next scene (which was VERY poorly integrated) you see the lady (you assume it's the maid) outside in the middle of the countryside mending it!! She takes a break and a drunk guy crawls inside it. She returns and finishes sewing it together and tries to carry it home--at which point the mattress seems to come to life. No matter that it now weighs 150 pounds more!! And, despite AMPLE proof to the contrary, she doesn't seem to notice anything wrong with it.

    While none of this film makes any sense, it had an interesting idea! Too bad, as director Alice Guy was capable of very good work--just not here in this mess of a film.
    Cineanalyst

    Sober Continuity

    This short comedy from Alice Guy of Gaumont, "The Drunken Mattress," is a good example of the development of continuity editing in the story film. The humor may be dated, with an inebriate ending up stuffed in a mattress--chaos ensuing. "The mattress, a symbol of matrimony, as well as sex, is removed from the domestic sphere," however, as Alison McMahan (in her book "Alice Guy Blaché: Lost Visionary of the Cinema") says, and, "Once in the field it is possessed by the most appropriate symbol of the irrepressible and aggressive spirit of the street: a drunkard." In this respect, too, McMahan refers to the mattress as the mattress-mender's (as portrayed by a man in drag) "runaway desires." Regardless, the construction of this comedy is quite sophisticated for its day.

    It's an early film to feature crosscutting--and with semi-reverse angles--from shots two through six. In other scenes, off-screen space is exploited and match cuts employed. Otherwise, too, the montage here is remarkably sober, as opposed to its drunken trouble maker. The axis of action is respected as the plot assumes the trajectory of prior chase comedies, from one place to another, one knockabout episode eclipsing the one before. Not including the stop-substitution trick effects, I counted sixteen shots in this, one of Guy's better films from this transitional period in the development of narrative cinema.

    As the studio was want to do, Pathé quickly plagiarized this Gaumont production as "Le Matelas de la mariée" (1906). Guy's version, too, McMahan suggests bares a passing resemblance to the Lumière film, "Querelle de matelassières" ("The Quarrel of the Mattress-makers") (1898), which, having seen it, too, a single shot-scene slapstick skit between women, that connection is, indeed, slight.

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      Included on the "Alice Guy Blanche Vol. 1: The Gaumont Years" Blu-ray, released by Kino.
    • Connections
      Featured in Alice Guy, 1st Female Filmmaker (2021)

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    Details

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    • Release date
      • January 1907 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • France
    • Languages
      • None
      • French
    • Also known as
      • Эпилептический матрац
    • Production company
      • Société des Etablissements L. Gaumont
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

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    • Runtime
      9 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Sound mix
      • Silent
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.33 : 1

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