Onésime sur le sentier de guerre
About Onésime sur le sentier de guerre
A well-off Onésime is invited to Mexico to set off fireworks at the engagement of Carmencita, Olavacca's daughter, to Señor Perno Gomez. He and Carmencita fall in love. Gomez, no braver than a rabbit, pays a tribe called the Pieds à l'Huile, the Slimy Feet, to kidnap her and to beat and scalp Onésime. Their chief, Escargot du Désert, the Desert Snail, keeps raising the price. Onésime is tied over a fire and basted; the chief tastes a slice and dislikes it. The Indians free him in exchange for the fireworks. A spinning fire wheel blows up the village, and the couple go back to the city.
Cast & crew
More about Onésime sur le sentier de guerre
Jean Durand directed this Gaumont parody of cowboy-and-Indian pictures. Alternate titles are Onésime correspondant de guerre and Onésime peau-rouge. The negative is 344 meters. Ernest Bourbon plays Onésime, Gaston Modot plays Perno Gomez, and Berthe Dagmar plays Carmencita.
Themes
Making
Bourbon plays the city man dropped into the western costumes. The intertitles do as much of the parody as the chase: the tribe and the chief are named for a joke, and the ransom keeps going up.
Preservation
The George Eastman Museum holds a 35mm triacetate master positive, a 1974 gift of the Cinémathèque française. A circulating transfer runs about 15 minutes.
Notes
- Léon Pollos and Alphonse Fouché play Indians.
- The Giornate del Cinema Muto screened it in 2017 and transcribed the Slimy Feet and Desert Snail titles.
- Gomez threatens Onésime with a knife and the titles still call him no more courageous than a rabbit.
- The firework wheel is the exit: it explodes and destroys the village.
- Durand's Gaumont unit also made comic westerns known as westerns-Camembert. This is the Onésime one.
Scenes
- The Desert Snail raises the price each time Gomez asks for revenge.
- Onésime is basted on a spit, and the chief spits out the first slice.
- The firework wheel explodes and takes the village with it.
