His First Job
About His First Job
A man brings his nephew into a grocery and asks the owner to hire him. The new assistant flirts with a shop girl, knocks over displays, and drives customers out. A spill of what plays as molasses, actually water, spreads the mess through the store.
Cast & crew
More about His First Job
Star Film sold the short in the United States as numbers 1246–1249. No French release of that year is recorded. A 1981 Centre national de la cinématographie guide argued from the style that Méliès's employee Manuel, an actor in the company, probably directed it.
Themes
Making
The film is credited to Georges Méliès. The 1981 catalogue study assigns the direction, on stylistic grounds, to his employee Manuel.
Technique
The shop wreck uses substitution splices, including a molasses flood that was filmed with water.
Preservation
A print survives and was included in Flicker Alley's 2008 Méliès DVD set.
Notes
- The molasses in the spill is water. The trick is done with substitution splices.
- The picture is also called Amour et mélasse and Love and Molasses.
- It is in the 2008 Flicker Alley set Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema.
- The running copy on Wikimedia Commons lasts 4 minutes and 58 seconds.
Scenes
- The uncle talks the grocer into hiring his nephew on the spot.
- Water standing in for molasses spreads across the floor while the new clerk keeps breaking stock.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Amour et mélasse (1908).webm)
- Flicker Alley DVD Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema (2008)
