The Game-Keeper's Son
About The Game-Keeper's Son
A gamekeeper's older son cleans his father's rifle and is told not to follow him on his rounds. He goes anyway. The keeper catches two poachers shooting rabbits. They have laid a rough bridge over a ravine and pull it away as he steps on it. He falls and dies. The boy sees it. He follows the men to a tavern, where they argue over the game they are selling. He grabs a knife. A fight brings the police. One poacher is arrested. The other runs, and with two gendarmes the boy chases him back to the ravine. The poacher falls in. The police congratulate the boy. The English Wikipedia's shorter account says the boy stabs the fleeing man.
Cast & crew
More about The Game-Keeper's Son
Alice Guy directed it for Gaumont. It was shot on location in and near the forest of Fontainebleau. Wikidata and the English Wikipedia time it at 5 minutes. A French account says 8 minutes. Francis Lacassin's filmography of Guy lists it at 83 meters. A Lyon screening is recorded for August 11, 1906. The French title is Le Fils du garde-chasse.
Themes
Making
The chase and the ravine were staged outdoors in the Fontainebleau woods, not on a painted set.
Look
The film was shot on location in and near the Fontainebleau forest, including the ravine.
Preservation
A print is on the Internet Archive.
Notes
- The boy is forbidden to come, makes his younger brother promise not to tell, and goes anyway.
- The poachers sell what they shot in a tavern before the fight.
- Guy kept the title on a list of films she remembered, later printed by Francis Lacassin.
- A Gaumont catalog line calls it a dramatic view of a keeper thrown into a ravine and a son who avenges him.
Scenes
- The poachers pull the plank bridge as the keeper steps onto it.
- The son watches the fall.
- The second chase ends at the same ravine.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-le-fils-du-garde-chasse)
