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Le squelette joyeux

  • 1897
  • 1m
IMDb RATING
6.4/10
1.2K
YOUR RATING
Le squelette joyeux (1897)
ComedyFantasyHorrorShort

A skeleton dances joyously, often collapsing into a heap of bones and quickly putting itself back together.A skeleton dances joyously, often collapsing into a heap of bones and quickly putting itself back together.A skeleton dances joyously, often collapsing into a heap of bones and quickly putting itself back together.

  • Director
    • Louis Lumière
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.4/10
    1.2K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Louis Lumière
    • 11User reviews
    • 2Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Photos10

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    User reviews11

    6.41.2K
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    Featured reviews

    10cantavlak

    Perfect

    Among the simplest yet best movies ever, comedy and horror join in this flawless short. watch it now it won't cost you a minute nor a penny,since it's in the public domain. thank you ,lumiere brothers, thank you
    Tornado_Sam

    As about as fictitious as the Lumiere Brothers got

    Honestly, this short subject was indeed made by the Lumiere Bros! Go ahead and laugh but it's true. Auguste and Louis Lumiere's films were often slices of everyday activities that will today be mostly of interest to film historians. Sometimes the Bros DID, however, create shorts that were staged just a bit, such as the primitive comedy "Tables Turned on the Gardener". But "The Joyeus Skeleton" is the closest I've ever seen the Bros get to the kind of filmmaking Georges Melies was turning out at the exact same time, not a trick film but certainly far from a documentary. It features a skeleton marionette (never mind that crud about it being stop-motion animation) dancing and flinging his bones around so that he falls apart. It is quite a clever idea and is interesting for the development of the Bros' films, and amazingly enough it's actually one of the few Lumiere films that can still entertain today. (If you wanna see it, many YouTube uploads have a fun music track that sounds like clacking bones which makes the watch more fun).
    10galenfott

    Not stop motion animation!

    While this film is fascinating and delightful, it is absolutely not stop motion animation. It is a film of a "break apart" skeleton marionette, nothing more. I have a skeleton marionette made by the Pelham Puppets company that does all these tricks. Clearly the design for the marionette was around at the turn of the century, and Pelham mass-marketed it. I'm astonished that this film is widely regarded as "one of the first stop motion films", when it is nothing of the kind. That's all I have to say, but unfortunately the IMDb is insisting that my review isn't long enough, so I'm writing more words. The film itself is only 45 seconds long! How many words can one write about a 45 second film?
    10diogohenrivintem

    The funniest film of early films

    This short film is hilarious! It is just a skeleton dancing, but he's so clumsy that makes it funny. I actually laughed at this one, which is very rare in this early short films. This Auguste & Louis Lumière film is the most creative and best edited film of the early cinema. Sincerely, I don't know how this is not the most famous film of the Lumière Brothers. I also rated L'arrive dun train with 10 out of 10, but just because these re pieces of history. These are the great images of the dawn of cinema. It certainly shows us the importance of the brothers in cinema, them, LePrince, Edison, William Dickinson and others made one of the most beautiful things ever, the motion picture. I like to watch this early films, I believe every cinephile does and this is probably the funniest of them, I thing people should valorize these films more.
    10catpantry

    Were all doing

    What were supposed to, or else! A woman sits by a swamp thinking about what had happened before. She saw a mini purple object with a soul on a treadmill staring at a pucture of the crossed out sun. She had been entranced, and took a nap right there. The sun rose and kind of bleached here mind so she built a room full of warm water (with 0 entrance) out of play dough and set it next to the purple object. The purple object slowly turned its attention to the room, and basically ended up not looking away from it while moving on its machine. And..the woman stared at that with a blank face.

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    Related interests

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    Fantasy
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    Short

    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      The film is also known as "The Dancing Skeleton".
    • Connections
      Edited into The Lumière Brothers' First Films (1996)

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    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • March 20, 1898 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • France
    • Language
      • None
    • Also known as
      • The Dancing Skeleton
    • Production company
      • Lumière
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

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    • Runtime
      • 1m
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Sound mix
      • Silent

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