The Sick Kitten

It's so simple and plain. Acting is perfect. Story line is marvelous. Cats are magnificent as always. I rate this movie 10/10.

What "planktonrules" does not realize about this film is that while it is nothing exceptional, it is a perfect example of breaking down a scene into several different shots, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT WE'VE GOT TODAY! Remember, lots of early films did not feature closeups OR different perspectives when showing a specific scene! So when George Albert Smith made films like this, he automatically paved the road for the films of today.

The film "Sick Kitten" is an exact remake of Smith's earlier film "The Little Doctors"--a film which is apparently lost that supposedly featured the exact same structure and story-line. What we're shown for less than a minute is a girl feeding medicine to a kitten--who is supposed to be sick. Despite its very simple plot, even today this a cute little home movie--though NOT a documentary due to the blank backdrop which shows it is staged.

This isn't the most engaging of films, but it is important in the development of cinema technique because of the way in which pioneering British filmmaker George Albert Smith transforms what would otherwise be a flat and somewhat dull film with the simple insertion of a close-up. The film shows two children and a couple of cats, one of which is supposed to be unwell. The cat sits on the girl's lap as a boy in an over-sized hat fetches a jug. The girl spoon-feeds medicine to the little kitten and it is at this point that Smith switches to a close-up of the kitten so that we can see it happily licking its medicine from the spoon. The film then returns to what was the establishing shot to show the boy removing his hat and bowing. It's no great shakes,and is fairly unremarkable when seen today, but it has a place in cinematic history.

I watched this film on a DVD that was rammed with short films from the period. I didn't watch all of them as the main problem with these type of things that their value is more in their historical novelty value rather than entertainment. So to watch them you do need to be put in the correct context so that you can keep this in mind and not watch it with modern eyes. With the Primitives & Pioneers DVD collection though you get nothing to help you out, literally the films are played one after the other (the main menu option is "play all") for several hours. With this it is hard to understand their relevance and as an educational tool it falls down as it leaves the viewer to fend for themselves, which I'm sure is fine for some viewers but certainly not the majority. What it means is that the DVD saves you searching the web for the films individually by putting them all in one place – but that's about it.

Having seen Smith use new techniques with his last few films this one was a bit of a letdown at first to me. It shows two children giving medicine to a sick cat and that's it. However only after reflection did I realise what was worth noting about it and, again, it is not the material (although the cat is cute). No Smith does two things of importance herein. Firstly he gets natural performances from the children and the cat, clearing that old saying had not been coined in his day. More importantly, although the film is one scene, it is broken up with close-ups on the action edited together to give the impression that it is all one continual time frame. OK this is nothing new and indeed it is so ordinary now for so long that I didn't even notice that it was happening in the same way as we don't notice breathing until we think about it.

So not a brilliant film but yet again an example of Smith experimenting with methods and devices in his films. The material is weak otherwise with only the cute and natural performances being of merit.

This short feature combines pleasant, enjoyable material with good craftsmanship and some imagination. It was a remake of the 1901 film "The Little Doctors", which apparently was permanently lost. Remade and given the simpler title "Sick Kitten", it's a charming and creative little movie.

The engaging mini-story involves two children and two cats, one of which is unwell. The children's acting is really pretty good. They are lively, and they are naturally presented as being cute, but they are believable as well.

A number of G.A. Smith's films show that he seemed to have had the knack for getting believable performances like these from his cast.

As simple as the story is, both the tone and the technique are commendable. In many movies today, such scenes are too often presented with some kind of extraneous crudity inserted into the sequence, to keep it palatable to those with short attention spans. Alternatively, such scenes can be marred by labored post-modernist references or other pretentious material, to avoid the appearance of being too innocent or naive. To make this kind of simple, positive family scene believable and effective is really a more worthwhile achievement.

The technique is also worth noticing, as it shows one continual scene broken up into multiple segments with different camera viewpoints. While using this kind of technique is perhaps not a monumental creative insight, this seems to be one of the very earliest films to use it, and it certainly shows an appreciation for the material and for how best to communicate it to an audience.