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| Les Frères Fratellini, ca 1925. Poster by Atelier S.E.G. |
(L’automobile e lo storpiato) (Motor Car and Legless Beggar) (FR 1905) Scènes comiques (2ème Série) dir: Ferdinand Zecca. cast: Les Fratellini. prod: Pathé Frères (Pathé Cat. no. 1216). filmed: 1904? rel: 1905. copy: 35 mm, 122 ft, 1'48", 18 fps); main title: ITA; no intertitles. source: BFI National Archive, London.
Grand piano: Gabriel Thibaudeau.
Teatro Verdi, Pordenone, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Slapstick Prog. 2 Clowns and Cretins, 9 Oct 2023.
Ulrich Rüdel (GCM 2023): " Perhaps the worst example of “cruel and unusual comedy” conceivable, films like this rightly make us extremely uneasy now for exploiting physical disabilities for perceived humor, even though the film’s denouement could be read as comic inversion, as an empowerment of the legless man. However, it also reminds us that physical and visual comedy in early silent cinema is invariably rooted in finding humor in human physicality, and not refraining from exploiting our less endearing feelings such as schadenfreude. "
" Directed by Ferdinand Zecca, now best remembered as the director of Pathé fairytales, it is included here though for a different reason, i.e., an early screen appearance by the groundbreaking clown team The Fratellinis. Although in heavy make-up, Paul and François Fratellini can be visually identified as the car’s passengers, while Albert Fratellini briefly confirms this (and other) early film appearances in his 1955 book, Nous, les Fratellini. "
" It is reasonable to infer that the four drivers are indeed all four sons of acrobatic clown Gustave Fratellini, Louis (born 1867), Paul (born 1877), François (born 1879), and Albert (born 1886). According to circus expert Vanessa Toulmin, all four did work in the circus, and appeared as acrobatic clowns, the Four Fratellinis, at the Tower circus, Blackpool, in 1905. François then became a rider, while Louis and Paul chose tumbling and clowning, and jointly appeared at the Hippodrome, London, in 1908. It was only in 1909, after Louis died, that the remaining brothers, in order to support Louis’s widow and family, formally joined to become the team that transformed circus clowning. "
" It may not come as a surprise that Pathé would look to the circus world to find new comic talent (in his 1934 autobiography famous Spanish clown Charlie Rivel claims to have been hired for an “insignificant” role by Pathé when playing in Paris in the 1910s), but the transition from the arena to the silver screen often turned out to be a difficult one, typically lacking potential for extension into carrying full comedy series. "
" Ultimately, (all) the Fratellinis would successfully play themselves – performing circus clowns, that is – only two decades later, in their single silent feature, and the same holds true for the feature-film appearances of Grock (in 1926, 1931, and 1950) as well as Rivel in his 1943 film debut, effectively preserving their artistry for posterity. Hal Roach’s failed attempt to launch a “Toto” series is featured elsewhere in this year’s program (His Busy Day, 1918, one of our “Slapstick Appetizers”). However, there is one major exception to the rule: Harald Madsen, the circus clown from Silkeborg, Denmark, achieved international fame as the shorter half of the comedy team Pat and Patachon (and returned to circus performances in this role upon his comic partner’s passing). " – Ulrich Rüdel
AA: Ulrich Rüdel's rewarding program note is a veritable mini essay on the subject of circus clowns and early cinema. This comedy short is a wild and brutal vignette about an invalid without limbs, moving on a platform on wheels (like one of the most memorable characters in Luis Buñuel's Los olvidados), upstaging a motor car, drinking gasoline and hauling the car with his prosthetic arms. An essay in the cinema of cruelty in the same manner as the films of Lon Chaney.
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