Cleopatra's Tomb
About Cleopatra's Tomb
In an Egyptian tomb a man hacks Cleopatra's mummy into pieces. From a smoking brazier he produces a living woman. Georges Méliès plays the tomb robber. Jehanne d'Alcy appears as the woman brought back.
Cast & crew
More about Cleopatra's Tomb
Georges Méliès wrote, directed, produced, and photographed the trick film in 1899. It is numbers 175–176 in the Star Film catalogue. The French title is Cléopâtre. Charles Urban released it in the United States as Robbing Cleopatra's Tomb. The British title was Cleopatra's Tomb. It runs about two minutes.
Themes
Making
Méliès uses a substitution on the mummy: the body is cut apart, and the woman comes out of the smoke rather than sitting up in the wrappings.
Look
Méliès photographed it himself. The change from chopped mummy to living woman is a stop-substitution in front of a painted tomb.
Preservation
It was long listed as lost. On 22 September 2005 a French print was reported as this film. IMDb identifies that print as Méliès's The Oracle of Delphi (1903), another tomb-robbery short, so the identification is disputed.
Notes
- Star Film catalogue numbers 175 and 176.
- The American title, Robbing Cleopatra's Tomb, is Urban's, not the French one.
- The trick is the chopped mummy and then a woman rising from the brazier.
- Urban kept distributing Méliès films after this release.
- A print announced as found in France on 22 September 2005 has been identified on IMDb as a different tomb film, The Oracle of Delphi (1903).
Scenes
- The robber chops the mummy into pieces.
- A woman comes out of the smoking brazier.
