Misfortune Never Comes Alone
About Misfortune Never Comes Alone
A soldier on guard in front of a barracks falls asleep, and a joker replaces his rifle with a fire-hose nozzle. An officer wakes him. The sentry soaks the officer and brings down a lamplighter when the street lamp falls. The lamplighter turns the hose on the guardhouse, climbs the facade, and slips out through an apartment. The scramble ends by toppling a Morris column.
Cast & crew
More about Misfortune Never Comes Alone
Georges Méliès directed and plays the lamplighter. Star Film number 451–452. Sold in the United States as Misfortune Never Comes Alone and in Britain as Accidents Never Happen Singly. Made in the winter of 1902–03. French Wikipedia and Wikidata both say 3 minutes. A duration line on the English page reads 2 minutes and 59 seconds. Effects are substitution splices.
Themes
Making
Méliès built a street in front of a painted guardhouse and played the workman on the lamp, not the sleeping soldier.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
A print survives. English Wikipedia's duration line is 2 minutes 59 seconds. French Wikipedia says 3 minutes.
Notes
- The advertising column in the set carries two posters for Méliès and one for Menier Chocolate.
- The English catalog line only says the scene is in front of a barrack with a soldier on duty.
- French Wikipedia supplies the hose-for-rifle gag and the fallen lamp.
- The Morris column is the Paris advertising kiosk that comes down at the end.
Scenes
- The joker puts a hose nozzle in the sleeping sentry's hands.
- The lamp falls on the officer and the lamplighter grabs the hose.
- A Morris column is pulled down.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Un Malheur n'arrive jamais seul (1903).webm)
