That Fatal Sneeze
About That Fatal Sneeze
At dinner an uncle (Thurston Harris) loads his nephew’s food with pepper until the boy (Gertie Potter) cannot stop sneezing. The nephew salts the uncle’s bedroom with pepper, on the handkerchief, the hairbrush, and the clothes. Next morning one sneeze shakes the room and dumps the bed. In the street the fits smash shopfronts. Shopkeepers chase him. He runs to a policeman and sneezes the constable and a lamppost down, and cracks a house. A ladder breaks under the next blast. The world rocks. The last sneeze blows him up.
Cast & crew
More about That Fatal Sneeze
Lewin Fitzhamon directed the comedy for Hepworth in 1907. It runs about six minutes. Wires yank furniture when the uncle sneezes. The camera sits on a rocking board for the shot in which the street seems to sway. The explosion is a stopped camera: Harris steps out and a small smoke device takes his place.
Themes
Making
Fitzhamon stages the pepper as a machine that gets stronger with each cut. The bedroom, the shops, and the street are the same gag at a larger scale, until the substitution ends it.
Look
The rocking-board shot is the trick: the camera itself is tipped so the street appears to lurch when Harris sneezes. Wires do the smaller damage indoors.
Technique
The explosion is a substitution splice. Harris leaves the frame, the camera stops, and a smoke device is set where he stood.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
A print survives and is discussed on BFI Screenonline.
Notes
- Gertie Potter, a girl, plays the nephew.
- Simon Brown’s note on BFI Screenonline is the write-up that itemizes the wires, the rocking board, and the smoke device.
- Wikidata files the producing company as Walton Studios, Hepworth’s plant at Walton-on-Thames.
- The chase grows from one dinner table to shopfronts, a policeman, and a house.
Scenes
- Harris pours pepper over the boy’s dinner.
- The bedroom sneeze throws the bed over.
- A shopfront comes down and the street starts to chase him.
- The policeman and a lamppost go over together.
- The last sneeze replaces him with a puff of smoke.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-that-fatal-sneeze)
