Le château hanté
About Le château hanté
Two men enter a castle room. One offers a chair and leaves. The chair slides away, then turns into a ghost, a skeleton, and a knight in armor before it vanishes. The man left behind turns and faces Satan. A ghost blocks the door when he tries to leave.
Cast & crew
More about Le château hanté
Georges Méliès directed and appears in it. Star Film catalogue number 96. It remakes his 1896 Le Manoir du diable and is cited as the first film remake. The American release title was The Devil's Castle and the British title The Haunted Castle, the reverse of the titles used for the 1896 film, and the two are often mixed up. Satan had first appeared in the 1896 picture. The transformations use substitution splices. It was the first Méliès film hand-colored in Elisabeth Thuillier's lab. A hand-colored print survives, with red used to lift the figures off the backdrop.
Themes
In film history
Cited as the first remake of a film, and the first Méliès picture colored by Elisabeth Thuillier.
Look
Substitution splices change the chair into a ghost, a skeleton, and a knight.
Technique
Stop-substitution for the transformations. Hand-coloring by Thuillier's workshop, the first Méliès film she colored.
Preservation
A hand-colored print survives.
Notes
- George Albert Smith bought a print. A lost 1897 film of his also called The Haunted Castle may simply be this Méliès title mis-credited to Smith.
- The ghost turning into a knight is an early armor gag of the kind later silent comedies used.
Scenes
- The chair becomes a ghost, then a skeleton, then an armored knight.
- Satan appears when the man turns around.
Influenced by
- Le Manoir du diable (1896)
