Post No Bills

"Post No Bills" is one of director Georges Melies's earliest works. Labelled as number 15 in his catalogue, it is thus his fifteenth movie. And, considering its age, it is no surprise that there are no special effects to be witnessed, for a very simple reason: he hadn't discovered any of them yet. This is why his earliest films, now mostly lost, were remakes of Lumiere subjects. His first film, "Une Partie de Cartes", is a remake of the Lumiere Brothers' "Partie d'ecarte"; his fifth film, "Watering the Flowers" is believed to have remade the old gag from "L'arroseur arrose" (though it is now considered lost).

But back to this film. Like "L'arroseur arrose", the gag in this one minute short is very basic and extremely outdated. This is no surprise at all, because ALL early film comedies were like this--and audiences thought they were hilarious. This one has an incompetent guard leaving his post only to be blamed later when two bill-posters hang their posters on the wall he's guarding. As far as I know, the Lumiere Brothers made only one version of this gag a year later, in a film entitled "Colleurs Affiches", so this short could be the first time the joke was filmed (or just the earliest available rendition). For 1896, it's pretty good even if the basic story isn't at all funny nowadays.

I have tried in recent reviews to emphasise two points about watching early films (although they apply equally to watching films from any period or from any culture that is not one's own). First, one should not assume that people in the past were idiots and necessarily pleased with anything they were shown. There is plenty of evidence to show that this view is false, that audiences were just as critical of films as modern audiences and voted with their feet when they thought the films being produced were no good. A good film is a good film whenever it is made, and a bad film is a bad one.

As many bad films as good films have survived form the "silent" era and Méliès' films are no exception to that rule. There are good films amongst them (some excellent) and there are also some poor ones and we need not hesitate to say so nor need we assume that a contemporary audience necessarily felt any differently about them.

But (and it is a big but), when we look at films made in the past (and particularly in the relatively distant past)), we do need to try and understand as much as possible of the context in which they were produced and sometimes that requires a little bit of work......

This film, it is clear, is not a classic. But none of the people reviewing it so far seem to have asked themselves what it is and what the context might have been for the making of it. Méliès owned and projected his films in a theatre that had previously belonged to the great French magician, Robert-Houdin and the second poster being pasted is for that very theatre. In other words, this is a brief advertising film. Which immediately I think changes our attitude somewhat towards it, does it not?

We have still a little work to do. This films was rediscovered in 2004 in the archives of the French Communist party (PCF) which have puzzled some researchers. I don't know why. It is a pleasantly anti-authoritarian little film. What virtually no researchers seem to have asked themselves - perhaps they thought the question unanswerable - is why the film opens with a shot of a milestone indicating that it is 125 kilometres fom Paris.

I shall now attempt to answer that question. Méliès was in the habit of shutting down his theatre in the month of August so that he and Mme Méliès and the two little Méliès could all go off for their annual holiday at the seaside. Normandy was their favourite holiday destination. They went there in 1896 and, for the first time, Méliès had his camera with him and used the opportunity to shoot a whole series of films. He filmed boats going in and out of Trouville harbour, he filmed the market there, he filmed the beach during a storm at Villers-sur-Mer, he shot two or three films of the docks at Le Havre (one of which he seems to have doctored so he could pretend it was shot at Marseille) and at Le Havre he also shot a panorama which is the earliest known case of a film made from a moving boat - two months before the more famous Lumière examples shot by Constant Girel and Alexandre Promio.

Naturally these films would have been exhibited at his theatre on his return in September as well as being made available to other exhibitors (hence the Marseille fake) via his catalogue. This film was not filmed in Normandy; it ws almost certainly filmed at Montreuil, where he was constructing his studio, on his return. But it is meant to be Normandy. Not Trouville, not Villers-sur-Mer, nor yet Le Havre but the administrative capital of Normandy Rouen, which not only happens to be 125 kilometres from Paris but which was also well known at the time for its many casernes (army camps). Have a little look on the internet sometime and you will find several contemporary postcards that bear witness to the fact; you may even come across one - it exists! - where the caserne has a "défense d'afficher" (it means "no bill-stickers" and has nothing to do with "defense show") sign on its wall.

There were many films made showing rival bill-stickers fighting it out (by the Lumières, by Gaumont, by Pathé, by the Czech Jan Krízenecký and by the Roach Studios in the US as late as 1923) but that does not necessarily mean that they were all imitating Méliès. The law in France under which these "Défense d'afficher" signs were put up dated from 1881 and such comic sketches had doubtless been part of the vaudeville repertoire long before anyone had even heard of the cinema.

The originality of the Méliès lies 1. in the idea of using such a sketch as a means of advertising his theatre 2. the typically surreal touch in the form of this absurd sentry whose sole purpose in life seems to be to guard this tiny stretch of wall where bill-sticking is forbidden but where, thanks to his total ineptitude, the sticker is going to have no difficulty in posting the advertisement for Méliès' Paris theatre.

The 1897 film made by Georgs Hatôt and Alexandre Promio for the Lumières, Colleurs d'affiches, also has a bill for the Lumière cinématographe being posted and the idea may well in this case have been suggested by the Méliès film but the Lumière film has a slightly different purpose. Everywhere they went, both in France and abroad, the Lumière operators were coming up against other pirate-operators claiming to be exhibiting "the cinématographe", the Lumières own patent system. So they made this short film to warn people against such imitations. One set of bill-stickers is shown putting up a sign for a false cinématographe, which the other set cover with a poster for the genuine article and the two sets of bill-stickers then have a bit of a set-to.

The other nice thing about the Méliès film is that it gives an unusual insight into the way the films were or might have been presented. Programmes were not silent. They were invariably accompanied by music but often also by commentary. This was particularly the case with Méliès (also a magician, remember), who gave great importance to what he called "boniments" ("patter" in English), which is still the word used by French magicians to this day. In this case no one in the audience was going to understand why they were seeing a milestone marked Paris 125 kilometres unless it was explained to them - as it would surely have been.

So, now, if you please, Messieurs Dames, imagine the scene at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin (are you sitting comfortably?) when, perhaps just before or after the intermission, this little advertising film is to be shown as a prelude of course to all the various films taken by Méliès during his hols . Ah, says the bonimenteur (surely Méliès himself) before you go for your cup of hot chocolate, Messieurs Dames, let me just tell you about something very strange that I saw when I was on holiday last year. We were going through the town of Rouen......and then the film runs.

It makes a nice little entrée to the main series of views when shown in his own theatre; it makes a humorous advert for his theatre when shown elsewhere (this particular film was shown in Valencia in Spain on the 14th September).

Now maybe I am just a gullible idiot like all these people back in 1899, but I think I might have been very much amused.

Defense d'afficher (1896)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

aka Post No Bills

Georges Melies comedy has an armed guard protecting a wall, which has a sign in front of it saying that no one is allowed to hang any bills. Of course, two idiots come along to break the rule and end up fighting each other. This "comedy" really doesn't have any real laughs so it's going to be of main interest to fans of Melies. The director, best known for A TRIP TO THE MOON and his "trick" films, made quite a few comedies but in a way it's easy to see why he isn't known for them. For the most part this thing is pleasant enough and since it runs under two-minutes there's really no dead space. I think the comic timing of the two main characters are really lacking as they never really sell the joke but to be fair to them the joke itself really isn't that funny to begin with.

Most people have seen few, if any, films from the very earliest days of movies. Well, compared to the average film of the day, this Georges Méliès product is great--mostly because everything else was so terribly boring and mundane. The bottom line is that the giants of early film, such as Lumière and Edison, were featuring the most ordinary of activities in films that only lasted a minute or less. Folks back in 1896 loved watching babies eat, people smoking and people smiling at the camera. So, seeing a comedy (of sorts) was a huge improvement and while you might thing "Post No Bills" is a bust, it was big stuff at the time.

The film consists of a very stupid soldier walking in front of a sign saying to 'post no bills'. Although he's standing practically next to the sign, two bozos come by and slap up posters. Believe it or not, this is a laugh riot....okay, it's NOT but it was back in the day.

Despite the presence of an armed sentry, a 'post no bills' sign is ignored by squabbling bill posters. One of Georges Méliès' early films, there's not much to it and no 'special effects'. Of historic interest only.