Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
About Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
John P. Brawn plays a man who eats too much Welsh rarebit. At home he ties a wet towel around his head and gets into bed. His shoes creep out of the room. Imps come out of a floating rarebit dish and poke him. The bed dances, spins, and shoots through the window. It sails over the city. He catches on a weathervane, his bedclothes tear, and he falls through his own ceiling. He wakes on the floor. Edwin S. Porter made the trick film for Edison from Winsor McCay’s comic strip.
Cast & crew
More about Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
Wallace McCutcheon Sr. is credited with Porter as director. Porter photographed it. Edison released it on 19 February 1906. The AFI Catalog dates the month as February 1906, the length as 470 feet, and the copyright as 24 February 1906, numbers H73985 through H73993. Wikipedia times a copy at 6 minutes. The Library of Congress named it to the National Film Registry in 2015.
Themes
Making
Porter stages the nightmare as a series of substitutions: walking shoes, imps, a bed that leaves the room, and a city panorama under the flying mattress.
Look
Porter shot the restaurant, the bedroom, and the panorama of the bed over the city.
Technique
The shoes, the imps, the spinning bed, and the flight over the city are stop-motion and double-exposure tricks.
Preservation
The film survives and was added to the National Film Registry in 2015.
Notes
- The Edison Military Band recorded a piece called “Dream of the Rarebit Fiend,” by Thomas W. Thurban, on cylinder Edison 9585 in 1907.
- Edison advertised photographic stunts that, the company said, had not been seen or attempted before.
- The January 28, 1905 strip is the one Wikipedia identifies as the source.
- Copies are on the Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons.
Awards
- National Film Registry (2015)
Scenes
- Imps climb out of the rarebit and poke the sleeper.
- The bed flies over bridges and rivers.
- He snags a steeple weathervane and drops through his ceiling.
Influenced by
- Winsor McCay’s comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend
Also available
- Internet Archive (DreamOfARarebitFiend)
- Wikimedia Commons (Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (Edwin Stanton Porter).webm)
