Calino, Station Master
About Calino, Station Master
Calino takes over from a station master who drinks, and he is no better: he wants to sleep and to play with the switches. While he reads a newspaper he shoves the lever back and forth, and a train outside the office window races forward and back. Luggage collapses, water floods the staff, and passengers riot whether the trains are late or early. He walks a horse into a first-class car, and the mess ends with a locomotive running through the station.
Cast & crew
More about Calino, Station Master
Jean Durand directed the short for Gaumont. Clément Mégé plays Calino. Comptoir Ciné-Location handled distribution. The Cinémathèque française also lists Gaston Modot, Berthe Dagmar, Marie Dorly, and Edmond Bréon. A tinted print of about 142 meters was shown at 18 frames per second.
Themes
Making
Durand stages the station as one room with a big window, then lets the trains, the water, and the horse do the jokes. Calino's grin stays fixed while the timetable falls apart.
Look
The station office is shot against a window, with a double exposure of trains passing at speed.
Preservation
A tinted print survives. Wikimedia Commons carries a digital copy.
Notes
- Antti Alanen, after a 2010 screening, singled out the double exposure of trains racing past the station-master's window.
- Modot plays a traveler running for a train. Edouard Grisollet is the station master Calino replaces. Lucien Bataille is a driver. Jacques Beauvais is a customer at the counter with a dog. Ernest Bourbon is the traveler caught in the luggage rack.
- French Wikipedia notes a reissue on January 14, 1916, and a 148-meter print that runs 6 minutes 40 seconds on DVD.
Scenes
- Calino works the switch while reading the paper, and the train outside reverses at full speed.
- He leads a horse into the first-class carriage.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Calino chef de gare (1912).webm)
