Le squelette joyeux

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.

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.

Le Squelette Joyeux (1898)

Long before Disney had THE SKELETON DANCE, there was this forty-second film from the Lumiere Brothers. Basically we see a skeleton (attached to wires) dancing around. As it dances faster and faster parts of it begin to fall off and then attach itself back to the body. This certainly isn't the work of Georges Melies but it's still pretty darn good and it's certainly very entertaining. It's obvious to see how the dance is being done but this really doesn't take away from the entertainment factor and especially when you consider when this was made. The goal was to make viewers laugh and I'm sure many did back in the day, although the sight of the skeleton might have scared some as well.

'The Merry Skeleton (1898)' depicts a happy skeleton busting some moves on the dance floor, unfazed whenever a bone falls out of place. The piece is pretty enjoyable for what it is, a silly little sideshow featuring a skeleton on a string and some camera tricks to make it seem as though it's putting itself back together after it falls apart. There isn't much to it, but it's pleasant enough and carries a lot of historical weight. I can imagine this delighting quite a few people, especially children, back in its day. 6/10.

I found this film on YouTube when I was watching some Georges Méliès films. I can only assume someone looked at the style and assumed it was one of his pictures...which isn't at all surprising. What IS surprising is that it was made by one of the Lumière brothers...who were known for much more mundane sorts of pictures than "The Merry Skeleton".

In "The Merry Skeleton" an obviously fake skeleton dances about on a string. However, by stopping and restarting the camera, you see parts of the skeleton fall off and magically reattach themselves. A cute trick for its day...and mildly enjoyable today.