The Terrible Turkish Executioner
About The Terrible Turkish Executioner
In a Constantinople square by a bazaar, an executioner played by Georges Méliès sits on a stone eating bread. Policemen drag in four chained prisoners and lock them in a pillory so the heads stick through one plank. A single sabre stroke takes off all four. He drops the heads in a cask and goes back to his meal. The heads climb out, find their bodies, and the four men jump him. One cuts him in two. His legs run while the torso waves them back, then grabs them and sticks itself together. He calls the police, and the crowd chases the prisoners.
Cast & crew
More about The Terrible Turkish Executioner
French title Le Bourreau turc. The American title adds "or It Served Him Right." The British title is What Befell the Turkish Executioner. Star Film 534–535. The catalog calls it a fantastical burlesque with tricks. The beheadings and the split body are substitution splices. English Wikipedia dates the film 1903; Wikidata and this catalog year it 1904. The Commons filename also uses 1903.
Themes
Background
The square, the bazaar, and the Turkish policemen are a painted Constantinople, shot in the Montreuil studio.
Making
For the stroke of the sabre the camera stops, the actors' heads are replaced, and the take starts again so four dummy heads can roll.
Reviews
Elizabeth Ezra contrasts the prop heads here with Méliès's usual dancing limbs, calling the effect closer to lurid gore than to his lighter trick films.
Look
One stage-width view of the square. Substitution splices supply the four falling heads, the heads rejoining the bodies, and the executioner cut in half.
Preservation
Wikimedia Commons holds Le Bourreau turc, filed under 1903, running 2 minutes 18 seconds.
Notes
- Méliès is the executioner, in a run of his films that play with heads off their bodies.
- The severed heads moving on their own repeat a magic-lantern gag that had been done with stacked glass slides for about two centuries.
- A circulating copy runs 2 minutes 18 seconds, under the three-minute listing.
- Elizabeth Ezra, in her study of Méliès, writes that the film exploits "the stereotype of Oriental despotism and cruelty.
Scenes
- One sabre cut sends four heads rolling, and Méliès puts them in a cask.
- His legs run off without his torso, then the two halves grab hold of each other.
Influenced by
- Magic lantern shows of moving severed heads
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Le Bourreau turc)
