The Untamable Whiskers
About The Untamable Whiskers
Against a view of the Seine, Méliès takes a blackboard and sketches a novelist. His own clean-shaven face becomes the drawing. He does it again for a miser, an English cockney, a comic figure, a French policeman, and Mephistopheles. Each change is a substitution or a dissolve, plus the drawing and the makeup.
Cast & crew
More about The Untamable Whiskers
French title Le Roi du maquillage. Star Film numbers 552–553. Sold in the United States as The Untamable Whiskers and in Britain as The King of the Mackerel Fishers. Also known as Les Moustaches indomptables.
Themes
Background
A 1904 Star Film close-up of Méliès changing faces, sold under different titles in the United States and Britain.
Reviews
William B. Parrill, writing on European silent films, said Méliès was in fine form and that his zest in the transformations was almost palpable.
Technique
The face changes are substitution splices and dissolves, matched to drawings Méliès makes on the blackboard.
Preservation
A paper print at the Library of Congress was copied to 16mm in 1953–1954 and restored to 35mm safety film in the 1980s.
Notes
- A timed print runs 2 minutes 41 seconds.
- It was treated as lost until paper rolls were found at the Library of Congress.
- Between 1953 and 1954 those rolls were copied to 16mm. A full restoration onto 35mm safety film followed in the 1980s.
Scenes
- He draws a novelist and his own face becomes the sketch.
- The last change is the grin of Mephistopheles.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Le Roi du maquillage (1904).webm)
