The Monster
About The Monster
An Egyptian prince hires a priest to bring back his dead wife. The priest takes her skeleton from a tomb, prays, and the bones dance. He wraps them, and the shroud becomes a monster that grows, then shrinks into the princess. A second shroud is thrown to the prince, and when it is unwound only the skeleton is left.
Cast & crew
More about The Monster
Georges Méliès directed, wrote, and plays the priest in Star Film numbers 481–482. Wikipedia gives a United States release of 30 June 1903 and a length of about 50 meters, roughly 2 minutes. The skeleton is a wire marionette, with trapdoors, substitution splices, and superimpositions.
Themes
Technique
The growing monster is a stage trick plus a substitution splice. The dancing skeleton is a marionette on wires.
Preservation
A print is on Wikimedia Commons and the Internet Archive.
Notes
- The plot reverses Méliès's earlier The Vanishing Lady, in which a living woman became a skeleton.
- The sets follow the Egyptomania of the period rather than a documented tomb.
- A circulating print runs about 2 minutes 30 seconds.
Scenes
- The skeleton stands up and dances after the prayer.
- The shrouded figure swells to fill the tomb.
- The prince unwinds the cloth and finds bones.
Influenced by
- Méliès's The Vanishing Lady
Also available
- Internet Archive (LeMonstre)
- Wikimedia Commons (Le Monstre (1903).webm)
