''The Hilarious Posters'' (french: Les Affiches en goguette) is a 1906 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 ...

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 was sold by Méliès's

Star Film Company The Manufacture de films pour cinématographes, often known as Star Film, was a French film production company run by the illusionist and film director Georges Méliès. History On 28 December 1895, Méliès attended the celebrated first publi ...

and is numbered 821–823 in its catalogues.

Plot

On a large canvas-and-wood

billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

, a man glues a poster showing two stars of ''L'Amour à crédit'', a show at the Parisiana music hall. It is surrounded by posters showing other figures, advertising various products: Poirot meat extract, Tripaulin paint, Nouveau Dépôt porcelain, Poudre de Fées

face powder Face powder is a cosmetic product applied to the face to serve different functions, typically to beautify the face. Originating from ancient Egypt, face powder has had different social uses across cultures and in modern times, it is typically u ...

, Quinquina au Cacao

liqueur A liqueur (; ; ) is an alcoholic drink composed of spirits (often rectified spirit) and additional flavorings such as sugar, fruits, herbs, and spices. Often served with or after dessert, they are typically heavily sweetened and un-aged beyond ...

, Trouillottine lamps, and Mignon corsets. The man leaves, and two

gendarme Wrong info! --> A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to "Man-at-arms, men-at-arms" ...

s pass by. As soon as the coast is clear, the people shown in the posters begin coming to life. The two Parisiana stars leave their poster entirely and walk around, busily talking to the residents of the other posters. A fracas breaks out when one of the stars begins flirting with the corset model, and the porcelain vendor drops his wares onto the ground. The figures turn back into flat images as the gendarmes pass by again. As a well-dressed gentleman crosses in front of the posters, they come alive again and begin throwing all their wares at him. The two gendarmes and two officers rush onto the scene, and all four are soon covered with face powder, powdered paint, and other products. The whole billboard comes toppling down with a crash, revealing the poster residents in real life behind a fence. As the police set the billboard to rights and look through the torn posters, they see all the poster residents dance happily off.

Production

''The Hilarious Posters'' was probably commissioned by

Victor de Cottens Victor de Cottens (21 August 1862 – 26 February 1956) was a French dramatist, librettist, stage director, and theatre critic. De Cottens was born in Paris. For the Folies Bergère, he directed every edition of the ''Revue des Folies-Ber ...

for showing as part of the 1905 edition of the annual Folies Bergère revue. (Though the descriptions of the show do not mention Méliès, he is credited in the program, and a scene closely resembling the action of the film is described in a surviving copy of the script.) The film may have been inspired by

Gaston Velle Gaston Velle (1868–1953) was a French silent film director and pioneer of special effects, who was prominent in early French and Italian cinema during the first two decades of the 20th century. Like his father, the Hungarian entertainer Joseph ...

's film ''La Valise de Barnum'' (

Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French people, French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest ...

, 1904), in which a man shows various posters and the figures in them come to life. Of the posters shown, "Tripaulin" parodies the paint brand

Ripolin Ripolin is a brand of paint. It was the first commercially available brand of enamel paint. Ripolin, a brand of commercial ready-mixed paints formulated for architectural, marine and other applications, originated in the Netherlands where it was d ...

; "Mignon" may be the corset brand Mystère, for whom Méliès had made an advertising film; "Nouveau Dépôt" is the Grand Dépôt, a crockery shop; and the Parisiana was a real Paris music hall on the

Grands Boulevards The Boulevards of Paris are boulevards which form an important part of the urban landscape of Paris. The boulevards were constructed in several phases by central government initiative as infrastructure improvements, but are very much associated w ...

, run by the same producer who helmed the Folies, Paul Ruez. ''L'Amour à crédit'', the Parisiana show being advertised, had begun running on 26 August 1905. Méliès appears in the film as the man who glues the posters, with Vilbert, one of the headlining acts at the Parisiana, playing himself on his poster. The special effects in the film are created by

substitution splice The substitution splice or stop trick is a cinematic special effect in which filmmakers achieve an appearance, disappearance, or transformation by altering one or more selected aspects of the mise-en-scène between two shots while maintaining th ...

s and, for the Tripaulin poster, a carefully worked multiple exposure with the three painters filmed at a much greater distance than the rest of the action.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hilarious Posters French black-and-white films Films directed by Georges Méliès French silent short films