''Le Dirigeable fantastique ou le Cauchemar d'un inventeur'', released in the US as ''The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship'' and in the UK as '' Fantastical Air Ship'', is a 1905 French short silent film 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 ...

. The film was released 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 786–788 in its catalogues.

Plot

In his ramshackle lodgings, decorated with designs of famous airships of the past, the inventor Crazybrains dances with glee at having designed a new dirigible. When he takes a nap, impish figures appear in his room, gleefully wreaking havoc with his papers before giving way to a vision of Crazybrains's new airship rising aloft above the rooftops. The airship travels through the clouds, and women reclining in painterly positions appear in the sky. Suddenly a fireball strikes the airship, and it explodes with much fire and smoke as the impish figures reappear. Crazybrains, waking up from his nightmare, tears around his room in a frenzy, knocking the plans for the airship down to the floor.

Themes

''Le Dirigeable fantastique'' is one of numerous Méliès films, like ''

A Trip to the Moon ''A Trip to the Moon'' (french: Le Voyage dans la Lune) is a 1902 French adventure short film directed by Georges Méliès. Inspired by a wide variety of sources, including Jules Verne's 1865 novel ''From the Earth to the Moon'' and its 1870 s ...

'' and '' The Impossible Voyage'', featuring a comically eccentric scientist. As featured by Méliès, the character is connected both to the Faust legend (a favourite theme of the filmmaker's) as well as to the long-lasting film tradition of the

mad scientist The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly amb ...

figure. Similarly parodic depictions of scientific practitioners also feature in other early films, such as the Edison Manufacturing Company's 1910 ''

A Trip to Mars ''Himmelskibet'', ''Excelsior'' / ''A Trip to Mars'' / ''Das Himmelschiff'' is a 1918 Danish film about a trip to Mars. In 2006, the film was restored and re-released on DVD by the Danish Film Institute. Phil Hardy says it is "the film that mark ...

''.

Release and survival

A hand-coloured print of the film, probably from

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 ...

's colouring laboratory, survives at the EYE Film Institute Netherlands. It was given a restoration in 1991.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Inventor Crazybrains And His Wonderful Airship Films directed by Georges Méliès French black-and-white films French silent short films