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''A Terrible Night'' (french: Une nuit terrible) is an 1896 French silent
A film commonly identified as ''A Terrible Night'' is known to survive and has appeared on various DVD collections. However, Méliès's great-great-granddaughter, Pauline Méliès, published findings in 2013 suggesting that the film commonly believed to be ''A Terrible Night'' is actually a later Méliès film, '' A Midnight Episode'', numbered 190 in the Star Films catalogues, and that the original ''A Terrible Night''—featuring simpler scenery and different camera placement, but the same plot and the same bed—survives in two print copies: a photocollage held by the
comedy film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...
by Georges Méliès. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 26 in its catalogues, where it is listed with the descriptive subtitle ''scène comique''.
Synopsis
A man tries to go to sleep, but is disturbed by a giant bug climbing up the bed and onto the wall. He attacks the bug with a broom and disposes of it in a chamber pot in a compartment of his bedside table.Production
''A Terrible Night'' may have been inspired by a series of comicmagic lantern
The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a si ...
slides, published in the 1880s by the English firm of Bamforth & Co Ltd. The film predates Méliès's famous use of cinematic special effects; the first known Méliès film with camera effects is '' The Vanishing Lady'', made later in 1896. Rather, the giant bug is a simple pasteboard prop controlled with wire.
The film was made with the Méliès-Reulos portable camera in the open air, in the garden of Méliès's home in Montreuil, using natural sunlight and a cloth backdrop. Méliès himself played the man attempting to sleep.
Survival
A film commonly identified as ''A Terrible Night'' is known to survive and has appeared on various DVD collections. However, Méliès's great-great-granddaughter, Pauline Méliès, published findings in 2013 suggesting that the film commonly believed to be ''A Terrible Night'' is actually a later Méliès film, '' A Midnight Episode'', numbered 190 in the Star Films catalogues, and that the original ''A Terrible Night''—featuring simpler scenery and different camera placement, but the same plot and the same bed—survives in two print copies: a photocollage held by the Cinémathèque Française
The Cinémathèque Française (), founded in 1936, is a French non-profit film organization that holds one of the largest archives of film documents and film-related objects in the world. Based in Paris's 12th arrondissement, the archive offers ...
and a flipbook published by Lèon Beaulieu around the turn of the century. If this hypothesis is accurate, both ''A Terrible Night'' and ''A Midnight Episode'' survive.
References
External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Terrible Night, A 1896 films 1896 horror films 1896 comedy films Films about insects French silent short films French black-and-white films Films directed by Georges Méliès French comedy horror films 1896 short films 1890s French films Silent comedy films Silent horror films