Humorous Rollerskater

1897 Comedy 46 seconds Directed by Marius Sestier

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About Humorous Rollerskater

In Prince Alfred Park, Sydney, a bearded man in street clothes skates for a crowd with a large cigar in his mouth. He loses his hat, falls while grabbing for it, and bows so that a white hand painted on the seat of his trousers shows. He finishes with a run of spins, more than twenty in a row.

Cast & crew

More about Humorous Rollerskater

Marius Sestier filmed the act in 1896 for the Lumière brothers, in front of the Exhibition Building, looking toward Cleveland Street. Lumière catalogue no. 117, later no. 73. The French title is Patineur Grotesque. It was also called The Humourous Rollerskater and The Burlesque Roller Skater. Sestier and Henry Walter Barnett made about 19 films in Sydney and Melbourne in October and November 1896, the first films shot in Australia. This one was not shown there until 17 March 2010, at Arc Cinema in Canberra.

Themes

Background

The picture was sent back to Lyon and entered the Lumière catalogue. Australians did not see it in 1896 or 1897.

In film history

The NFSA treats the Prince Alfred Park reel as the earliest Australian film that still exists.

Making

Sestier had come to Sydney in mid-September 1896 both to project Lumière films and to shoot new ones. The skater's name was never recorded with the catalogue entry.

Look

Marius Sestier cranked a Lumière Cinématographe. The skater stays in the middle of a single view, with the crowd and the Exhibition Building behind him.

Preservation

Restored in 1966 by the Hungarian National Film Archive and later identified as Sestier's. The NFSA holds it and calls it Australia's earliest surviving film.

Notes

  • Wikipedia dates the Lyon release to 28 March 1897. The National Film and Sound Archive dates that screening to 28 February 1897.
  • For years the park was taken for a Melbourne location. After the NFSA posted the film in 2010, a City of Sydney Archives volunteer identified Prince Alfred Park.
  • The Hungarian National Film Archive restored a print in 1966 without knowing it was Australian. The 1996 Bibliothèque du film Lumière catalogue tied it to Sestier.
  • The NFSA describes it as Australia's earliest surviving film.
  • It was made in the Colony of New South Wales.

Scenes

  • He bows, coat-tails up, and the white hand on his trousers faces the crowd.
  • He ends on more than twenty spins.

Also available

  • National Film and Sound Archive of Australia