The Original Movie.

An early 1920s animated satire of movie-making? I thought I had a home-run right there, but unfortunately Tony Sarg's 'The Original Movie (1922)' is something of a disappointment, despite its strengths, failing almost entirely to engage me. This is one of only three surviving episodes from the series of short animated films, "Tony Sarg's Almanac (1921-23)," which traced modern life back to the Stone Age, where things really weren't all that different. The style of animation uses relatively simple silhouettes, most readily identifiable with Lotte Reiniger and Carl Koch's 'The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926),' though it had been used earlier in a 1915-1916 American series called "Silhouette Fantasies." The style is also notable in that it calls to mind the magic lantern technology that predated movies; this is very appropriate for a film that concerns itself, however jokingly, with the birth of cinema. Sarg also acknowledged the influence of Chinese shadow puppetry in his animation, an ancient art that goes back centuries.

'The Original Movie' opens, rather cleverly, with a flashback to Eadweard Muybridge's motion photography experiments with horses, ostensibly the birth of film-making as we know it. However, this notion is swiftly dismissed, and, via an even longer flashback, we are brought back to the Stone Age – which, aside from the production company name, Stonehenge Film Company, could just as easily be set in modern times. From here, I didn't find all that much interest in the subsequent proceedings. Sarg's animation is very static, lingering on the single shot for considerable periods of time, and the film under production {bafflyingly titled "Who's the Goat?"} doesn't offer much in the way of creativity. I did, however, get a chuckle from the very ending, when the film's original writer – thanks to the division-of-labour production system already in Hollywood at the time – doesn't even recognise the product of his efforts. Overall, there's mild interest in this short animated comedy, but the opportunity for cinematic satire was largely squandered – something like 'Sherlock Jr. (1924)' would be much more worthwhile.

I happened to see this movie on TCM in their classic short showcase. an excellent program which gives great supplemental information. About this short they explained that the animation was done by a puppeteer using cut outs of the figures. This is quite unique, and the elaborate figures are so masterfully handled it rivals any animation done in the intervening 80 years.

"The Original Movie" (Tony Sarg 1922) is a silhouette animation about the travails of early screenwriters and filmmakers -- early being in the age of dinosaurs! Inventive and charming, it's only the second silhouette film I've seen (Lotte Reininger's 1926 feature masterpiece "Prince Achmed" being the other) but I certainly want to see more. The goat sitting behind the screenwriter as he's editing his work ends up being the ultimate culprit as the writer's work makes an uneasy transition to finished product; there are also censors waiting to put their own stamp on things. Brilliantly done, with an awful lot of ideas packed into 8 minutes.

The copy I watched was from the "Treasures of American Cinema", Volume I (first disc), and like everything else on the set is impeccably transferred and well-scored, with excellent documentation.

This is a cute film, as the film is supposedly the product of a stone-age film production company--and is reminiscent of the Flintstones in many ways. You not only get to see what the caveman crew made but the actual steps they take to make this strange little film. And for 1922, this is a pretty cute idea and is overall a very watchable film. Warner Brothers did some films like this in the 1930s and I am guessing that the producers of THE ORIGINAL MOVIE may have been inspired by the success of Winsor McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur. Oddly though, the style of animation looks a lot like Asian shadow puppets. This really isn't bad, but certainly is unusual and gives this short a unique look. It's an excellent film for historians and lovers of early animation. Others might find the film a bit dull, but considering it's a short you haven't got much to lose by watching this.

A year ago, I watched Tony Sarg's Marionettes in the Orient where the puppetmaster manipulated strings for a show. Here, he's the animator using shadow cutouts to tell the beginning of moving pictures during the Stone Age. This was a parody of the way movies were filmed and edited to the consternation of the writer whose work gets castrated to the point of intelligibleness! I thought the whole thing a little amusing if not hilarious. It was a nice recall of the silhouette animation that I had previously watched of a few Lotte Reiniger films. This was certainly one of the more technically fascinating shorts from the silent era. So on that note, I recommend The Original Movie for anyone interested in these rarities.