How He Missed His Train
Le Réveil d’un monsieur pressé, 1900, 1m10s
Star Film Catalogue No. 322
A man wakes up in bed, yawns and stretches. He gets out of bed, clad in full-length underwear, reaches for his trousers and tries to put them on. He inserts one leg, but the trousers turn into his waistcoat. Believing that it’s his mistake, he laughs and tries to put the waistcoat on properly. It changes back into his trousers, so he tries to put them on again, only to find himself inserting his feet into the sleeves of his jacket. He inserts his arms, and they change back into his trousers, and then again into his waistcoat. Now visibly annoyed, he tries putting on a boot, which turns into a top hat, and back into a boot again when he puts it on his head. He tosses it angrily to one side and goes back to bed.
Yet another variation on a theme already established by The Bewitched Inn (L’Auberge ensorcelée, 1897), Up-To-Date Spiritualism (Spiritisme abracadabrant, 1900) and Going To Bed Under Difficulties (Le Déshabillage impossible, 1900). This scenario reverses the situation of the last film, in that the unfortunate protagonist is trying to get dressed in the morning to catch his train - only to find his trousers constantly turning into his waistcoat, his boot into his hat, and so on. Once again, the effects are created by multiple jump-cuts, the gap between them getting less and less as the man’s movements grow more frantic - though at least here there is a more satisfactory resolution than in the three previous films: the first two led with him fleeing the room, the third with him seemingly caught in an infinite loop, but here he simply bows to the inevitable and goes back to bed.
There’s no reference to trains in the French title (which translates as “A man in a hurry gets up in the morning”), though the backdrop shows a railway viaduct: presumably the downside of an otherwise spectacular view is that it’s all too easy to see the train approaching when one is desperate to catch it. The man also appears to be extremely well-off - the ornate carvings surrounding the view, the wrought-iron bed, the waistcoat and top hat all suggest that he’s used to being in control. This may also explain why he gives up so quickly.
The untinted print on Flicker Alley’s DVD is riddled with small spots, scratches and blotches pretty much throughout, but the underlying image is more detailed than average, making this easy to tune out. Neal Kurz’s piano accompaniment begins with a jaunty, upbeat “morning” feel, and the main theme keeps reappearing in an attempt to urge the man on, before finally descending to a rueful conclusion.
Links
- Internet Movie Database entry.
- Jshaide’s review (Rotten Tomatoes forum)
Posted on 25th June 2008
Under: Jump-Cuts, 1900 | 2 Comments »
An elderly doctor keeps a monkey in a cage. When he briefly pops out, the monkey breaks free, leaps onto a nearby table and begins to systematically wreck the doctor’s study. After overturning a cupboard, he climbs up the stairs to the doctor’s bedroom. The doctor grabs it by the tail, which comes off. While the monkey trashes the bedroom, the doctor is attempting to tame the tail, which has developed a life of its own. The tail affixes itself to his face, to the horror of the doctor’s maid, who comes in to assist, eventually pulling it off. While they attack the tail with various implements, the monkey smashes a hole through the bedroom floor and jumps through it into the study. The monkey then attacks the doctor, and then the maid, ripping off her skirt and leaving her in her petticoat.
Méliès was clearly so proud of the set that it would very soon make a repeat appearance, to more dramatically coherent effect, in 
A bearded man leads eight women to stand behind an apparatus incorporating a trestle table, wooden steps and a large barrel. He orders each woman to climb into the barrel, roughly pushing down their heads. When all eight are in the barrel, he turns it over, revealing it to be empty. He rights the barrel, and leaves, and then reappears in the barrel.
Despite dating from 1900, it could have been made at any point in the previous five years since Méliès’ discovery of the creative potential of the jump-cut, and one suspects that this was knocked off relatively quickly to meet some kind of production quota. Although the French title hints at a classical allusion, with its reference to Danaids, the relationship between the film and the original Greek myth seems somewhat tenuous: there, forty-nine out of fifty daughters of King Danaus were sentenced to fill bottomless barrels with water for all eternity as a punishment. This might have been conveyed more effectively if there had been a sense that the barrel routine was about to be repeated, and continued indefinitely, but instead we merely get the perpetrator of the trick bowing to the audience as though he was an ancient precursor of a modern stage magician like Méliès himself.
A businessman enters a hotel room and hangs his umbrella, coat and hat on the leftmost of a row of hooks. He then removes his jacket and waistcoat and places them on a nearby chair. As he removes his trousers, another coat and hat appear on his back and head. He removes these and places them on the hook next to his original coat and hat, but as he removes them, another hat appears on his head, and he is clad in a pair of check trousers. This process is repeated several times, with the businessman becoming increasingly agitated. When all the hooks are full, he starts flinging his clothes into the corner, the pile growing increasingly large. Finally, he jumps on the bed and pulls the covers over himself, only for the bed to vanish. He resumes undressing again, and discovers that he is now wearing multiple layers of clothing.
The frenzy continues right to the end of the film, even beyond what appears to be the climax (the vanishing of the bed at a crucial moment, a Méliès device now so familiar as to be somewhat predictable), as if to suggest that the poor man’s plight will continue indefinitely. The two earlier films mentioned above finished with the protagonists fleeing the room, though here (possibly exacerbated by the abrupt ending of the print under review) he seems doomed, Sisyphus-like, to try to undress for ever.
A maidservant lays the dinner table for two women and an elderly man, who try to sit down - but the chairs vanish and reappear on top of the table, causing them to hit the floor with a bump. They get up, replace the chairs, and sit on them without further incident. The man takes the lid off the tureen, sticks his spoon in, and is startled to find it expanding to three times its original size. Initial enthusiasm gives way to dismay when he finds two knee-length boots inside it. He angrily orders the maid to remove both them and the tureen. He sits back down and demands the first course. The maid brings in a roast turkey. The man stands and attempts to carve it, but the table’s legs suddenly extend so that the table-top is out of reach. The man climbs on a chair, and the table shrinks to its previous height. The trio sits down again, and the table vanishes, reappearing on the other side of the room. They move over there, and the table sinks through the floor, re-emerging in its original position. They move back there, and it sinks through the floor again. They get up, and the table reappears, this time bearing a ghastly spectre that performs a macabre dance. The women flee, and the man tries to hit it with a chair, but it passes right through it. The second time, the chair hits the table, which vanishes again. The spectre is replaced with a box of dynamite, which blows the man up against the wall. His limp body falls to the ground, and then jerks around as though possessed. The women return, but can do no more than stare.
So far, so familiar, but Méliès then turns the film into a full-blown ghost story, as a hideous spectre appears and dances on top of the table. It was created via a superimposition, which is why the host can’t hit it with his chair. The spectre then turns into a box of dynamite which blows the host against the wall. What happens afterwards isn’t clear - it seems as though his legs shatter as though made of china, leaving them uselessly limp, and supernatural forces then force him to dance in a spectacularly undignified fashion. It’s the final humiliation, and although the maid never reappears, one suspects there’s a certain amount of quiet satisfaction in the kitchen.
Two female wrestlers help each other up and take a bow, their wrestlers’ outfits transformed into sober black dresses. They drape white sheets over themselves, removing them to reveal moustachioed male wrestlers, who begin a bout. The curly-haired wrestler is grappled to the ground, his body flung around as though weightless. Finally, he is tossed aside, but while his opponent is preening, the curly-haired wrestler gets up, forces the bald wrestler to his knees, and knocks his head off. He then rips off each of his arms, and tears his trunk from his legs. After claiming victory, he places the trunk in a nearby chair, and replaces its head and limbs. The bald wrestler comes back to life, and the two bow. Each wrestler plucks a female wrestler from behind his opponent. All four bow, then the men pick up the women, who vanish as they do so. The men then leave arm in arm. A much fatter wrestler enters, as does a thinner opponent, who tries and fails to lift him. The fat wrestler falls on top of him, squashing him flat. He places the completely flat body in a variety of poses, eventually rolling him up. The thin wrestler unrolls himself, grabs the fat wrestler and tosses him into the air. He looks up in the air, laughs, and the fat wrestler falls back down on top of him. The thin wrestler jumps on top of his belly, and the fat wrestler explodes, his limbs and head shooting in all directions. After the thin wrestler leaves, the limbs take on a life of their own, moving towards the trunk to reconstitute the fat wrestler. He looks in the direction of his now departed opponent and expresses outrage.
Once these two have resolved their differences and left the arena (accompanied by the two female wrestlers, who put in a surprise reappearance), we’re introduced to two successors - this time the ones that give the film its English title. Their bout is just as violent as its predecessor, though Méliès here substitutes a dummy to make it seem as though the fat wrestler has literally flattened the thin one, in the manner of Jeff Brown’s classic (albeit not yet written) children’s book Flat Stanley. The thin man’s revenge, already described above, involves one of the most perfectly-timed jump cuts in Méliès’ entire output: the effect of a clearly living human being apparently exploding is alarmingly convincing.
On Christmas Eve, a child is tucked up in bed. In Father Christmas’s grotto, his servants are hard at work, but take advantage of his absence to admire an elaborate procession and perform a dance featuring a ballerina solo. Father Christmas returns, grabs one of his charges by the ear and cuffs him. On the town’s snow-covered rooftops, angels deposit presents down the chimney. Bellringers announce that it’s Christmas, and a group of people enters the church, shaking off the snow. Doves flutter around the gigantic bell. People parade through the town centre, many holding lanterns. A man interrupts a Christmas feast to ask for alms, and after a brief altercation is welcomed to join the revellers. In the child’s bedroom, various presents are unwrapped as other family members come with Christmas wishes. A long line of children dances in a snowy landscape.
The mythical material continues into the next shot, as presents are deposited down chimneys - though in an unexpected touch, the deliveries are being facilitated by two angels, their wings offset by the snow-covered roofs depicted in a foreshortened perspective familiar from other Méliès titles, which has the effect of grouping the buildings tightly together. The church spire can be seen in the distance, towering over the rest, and the whole scene is being gently blanketed with presumably artificial snow.
We then return to the child’s bedchamber, and while the social aspects of Christmas continue to be a running theme (though this time on a family level), the consumerist elements take over, as the child is given various large animal toys, a drum, a doll and other assorted knick-knacks. Finally, all the children dance around a Christmas tree, perhaps the single most universally recognised symbol of the season, which brings the film to a fitting close (albeit a somewhat abrupt one in the print under review, which seems to end fractionally too early).
A man emerges from the fireplace, bows, pats two stools and splits himself in two. The doubles sit on a stool and converse. One gets up, picks up a table, and places it between them. He then produces a shop window dummy’s head, places it on the table, and places a hat on it. It comes to life, and looks from one man to the other. One crawls under the table in search of mechanical trickery. The other initially looks puzzled, then waves his hand and the table disappears, revealing a fully-formed crouching woman. She rises to her feet and chats to the man who made her appear. The other man conspires with the viewer, tiptoes up to her surreptitiously and tries to plant a kiss on her cheek. Meanwhile, the devil has entered and, unnoticed by the two other men, causes the woman to fade away into nothingness. The two men gradually notice the devil, and flee. The devil laughs and removes his make-up, revealing himself to be the spitting image of the two men from earlier. He discards his costume, bows to the audience, and retreats back into the fireplace, where he vanishes.
It’s another demonstration of his visual sleight of hand - he knows the audience will be watching the business between the two men and the woman, and therefore won’t be looking at the third man too closely. Even if they do, the join is virtually seamless, so it’s genuinely startling when beard, eyebrows and hat are removed to reveal Méliès underneath. Small wonder he’s laughing so heartily - he’s completely second-guessed not just the film’s other characters but also the audience.
A man attempts to put his top hat on a chair, but the chair scurries off into a corner. He then places his umbrella on a stool, only to see it shoot off into the far distance. He places his hat on the same stool, only to see it rising slowly upwards and repositioning itself on the floor. He tries to retrieve it, but it shoots up into the air and drops down on the other side of the stool. He finally manages to grab it, and replaces it on his head. He then places it on a nearby table, but when he removes his coat, the hat reappears on his head. He puts it back on the table, but his coat reappears on his body, followed by the hat. His movements get more frantic as he tries to divest himself of both hat and coat, with equal lack of success - even tossing it into a corner or jumping on it ultimately have no effect. He removes his coat, places it on the floor, and lowers the table on top of it to hold it down, but the same thing happens. Defeated, he leaves the room.
But despite the uncharacteristically flagging inspiration on show here, Méliès would ring more variations on this particular theme in the self-describing 
A man enters a room, in the middle of which is a large stand - onto which he places a gigantic book, bilingually titled ‘Le Livre magique’/'The Magical Book’. He opens it to the first page, which features a picture of Mr Punch. Taking him by the hand, he pulls Mr Punch out of the book and into the room. He turns the page, to reveal a double portrait of Harlequin and Pierrot, pulls them into the room in a similar fashion, and then turns the page again to reveal pictures of a young woman and her father. This time, he only pulls the young woman into the room: she curtsies and performs a little dance. This attracts the attention of the book’s other characters, who surround her. Annoyed, the man pulls her father out of the book, and he waves his stick at his daughter’s suitors. The two men join forces and push Punch back into the book, followed by Harlequin, but Pierrot hides behind the book. Meanwhile, the man has pushed the young woman and her father back into the book. He finds Pierrot, grabs him by the ear and tries to force him back into the book, closing the covers. But Pierrot has yet to be absorbed back into the pages, pushes the book open again, jumping back into the room. The man forces him back into the book through the front cover, successfully, but the book then falls on top of him, flattening him completely. He then re-enters the room through the door, and bows, before picking up the book, tucking it under his arm, and leaving. 
There are two points of interest about the book itself: firstly, its title (which is also the title of the film) is bilingual in French and English, showing that Méliès was clearly interested in distributing the film in English-speaking territories. Secondly, related to this, is the fact that his signature accompanies the various drawings. As with the written reference to his theatre in