The Acrobatic Fly

1910 Documentary 2 minutes Directed by F. Percy Smith

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About The Acrobatic Fly

A housefly, fixed to the head of a match, juggles with its feet. It handles a blade of grass, a cork, and a tiny dumbbell. It then spins a ball about twice its own size while a second fly sits on the ball. At the end it repeats some of the tricks from a seat that looks like a miniature chair.

Cast & crew

More about The Acrobatic Fly

F. Percy Smith made the short for Charles Urban. It is also called The Balancing Bluebottle. Mark Duguid of the BFI notes that the footage is close to, and shorter than, a passage in Smith's 1911 release The Strength and Agility of Insects.

Themes

  • A fly used as a juggler
  • Props smaller than a hand
  • A second fly as the top of the act
  • housefly
  • match
  • dumbbell
  • F. Percy Smith
  • close-up
  • Charles Urban

Making

Smith built the props at insect scale and framed the fly so tightly that the match-head reads as a stage. The chair in the last shot is one of those props.

Look

Smith's camera sits close enough that a grass blade and a cork fill the frame against the fly's legs.

Preservation

The short survives and is on Wikimedia Commons.

Notes

  • The fly is secured to the match. The objects move on its feet, not in its mouth.
  • Smith was then making a run of insect close-ups for Urban.
  • The BFI comparison is to The Strength and Agility of Insects (1911), not to a later nature feature.
  • No human cast is credited.

Scenes

  • The fly, stuck to the match, keeps a cork and a dumbbell moving with its feet.
  • A second fly rides the ball while the first spins it.
  • The same tricks return with the fly perched on a tiny chair.

Influenced

  • The Strength and Agility of Insects (1911), which repeats a longer version of this act

Also available

  • Wikimedia Commons (The Acrobatic Fly (1910).webm)