Bluebeard
About Bluebeard
Georges Méliès plays Bluebeard, who marries again after a feast even though seven wives have vanished. He leaves his wife the keys and forbids one room. An imp urges her in, and a fairy tells her to stay out. She finds a torture chamber where the seven bodies hang and drip blood. She drops the key, cannot wash the stain off, and dreams of giant keys. When Bluebeard sees the key he shakes her. She runs to the tower and calls her brothers. They pin him to the wall with a sword. The fairy brings the murdered wives back to life, and they marry seven lords.
Cast & crew
More about Bluebeard
Star Film numbers 361–370. The film is based on Charles Perrault’s tale and adds a fairy and a devil. Méliès plays Bluebeard, a kitchen assistant, and the Devil. Jehanne d’Alcy plays the wife, called Fatima in the French and American catalogs. Bleuette Bernon plays the fairy. The sets mix Renaissance, medieval, and Moorish pieces, including a giant bottle of Mercier champagne. During a stabbing setup Méliès broke his femur, finished the film, and wore the cast at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin reopening on September 22, 1901.
Themes
Making
The broken femur happened while the stabbing was being prepared. He finished the picture in the cast.
Technique
The transformations use substitution splices and dissolves, with stage machinery and pyrotechnics in the chamber and the ending.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
David Shepard restored a surviving print for a home-video release in 2008. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons as Barbe bleue (1901).webm.
Notes
- The French title is Barbe bleue.
- The last shot is a theatrical apotheosis.
- Props such as the key and the Mercier bottle are built oversized so they read in the wide shot.
- Méliès may have known a Lumière Brothers version of the tale from 1897.
Scenes
- The wife opens the forbidden room and finds the seven bodies hanging.
- She dreams that giant keys pursue her.
- Her brothers pin Bluebeard to the castle wall.
- The fairy restores the wives, and they marry seven lords.
Influenced by
- Charles Perrault's Bluebeard
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Barbe bleue (1901).webm)
