''Le Château hanté'', released in the United States as ''The Devil's Castle'' and in Britain as ''The Haunted Castle'', is an 1897 French

short Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as ...

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

directed by

Georges Méliès Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès (; ; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French illusionist, actor, and film director. He led many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. Méliès was well known for the use of ...

. It is a

remake A remake is a film, television series, video game, song or similar form of entertainment that is based upon and retells the story of an earlier production in the same medium—e.g., a "new version of an existing film". A remake tells the same ...

of a previous film by Méliès, ''

The House of the Devil ''The House of the Devil'' is a 2009 American horror film written, directed, and edited by Ti West, starring Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, Greta Gerwig, A. J. Bowen, and Dee Wallace. The plot concerns a young college student who is ...

'' (''Le Manoir du diable'', 1896). The 1896 original, which was released in the United States as ''The Haunted Castle'' and in Britain as ''The Devil's Castle'', is sometimes confused for the 1897 version. ''Le Château hanté'' is about a man who enters a haunted castle and is constantly taunted by spirits within.

Plot

Two men enter a room in a castle; one offers a chair to the other and then exits. The remaining man attempts to sit down, but the chair moves away from him, and he falls to the ground. When the man approaches the chair, it turns into a ghost, then a skeleton, and then an armored knight; then it disappears completely. Turning, the man finds himself confronted by

Satan Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...

. He attempts to escape, but a ghost blocks his way.

Production and release

The film marks the second appearance of Satan as a character in a Méliès film (the first was '' Le Manoir du diable'' the previous year). The special effects in the film were created using the editing technique known as the substitution splice. One moment in the film, the transformation of the ghostly figure into a knight in armor, prefigures numerous

sight gag In comedy, a visual gag or sight gag is anything which conveys its humour visually, often without words being used at all. The gag may involve a physical impossibility or an unexpected occurrence. The humor is caused by alternative interpretation ...

s involving armor that became popular during the silent era in comedy films. ''Le Château hanté'' was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 96 in its catalogues. The English film pioneer

George Albert Smith George Albert Smith Sr. (April 4, 1870 – April 4, 1951) was an American religious leader who served as the eighth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Early life Born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territor ...

, a corresponding friend and colleague of Méliès, was among the buyers of the film; Smith himself experimented extensively with similarly ghostly topics in his own films made around the same time. Smith is sometimes credited with a lost 1897 film of his own on the same subject, and also called '' The Haunted Castle'', but this title may simply be the Méliès film, mistakenly attributed to Smith by later film scholars. The film was the first Méliès work to be

hand-colored Hand-colouring (or hand-coloring) refers to any method of manually adding colour to a monochrome photograph, generally either to heighten the realism of the image or for artistic purposes. Hand-colouring is also known as hand painting or overpa ...

at the coloring lab run by

Elisabeth Thuillier Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist Ships * HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships * ''Elisabeth'' (sc ...

. A hand-colored print of ''Le Château hanté'' survives; its straightforward color scheme uses a red tone to help the characters stand out from the painted backdrop (although the tones also help distract the eye from the editing tricks used). Méliès went on to have Thuillier and her lab workers hand-color many of his films; later collaborations between Méliès and Thuillier were much more elaborate in their use of color.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Haunted Castle 1897 films French silent short films French black-and-white films Films directed by Georges Méliès Films set in castles 1890s ghost films French haunted house films Horror film remakes Articles containing video clips French ghost films 1897 short films Silent horror films 1890s French films

Plot

Production and release

See also

References

External links