Yet another remake; 1890s movies have no originality
The Haunted Castle, an 1897 film by Georges Melies, is a bit of an odd duck, but also another important milestone for the director. With a Star Film Company production number of 96, it comes just a few months on the heels of The House of the Devil. In fact, it is essentially a condensed and enhanced version that film, to the point that you can call it a remake. It may very well be the first ever narrative film remake. But before we dig into that claim, let’s be clear what we’re talking about, because it’s more confusing than it ought to be.
Let’s start with the film’s title. Stepping backwards: Le Manoir du diable, the film with Star Film Company numbers of 78-80 and made in 1896, was distributed with several titles. In addition to its French title, it was distributed as The Haunted Castle in the United States and The Devil’s Castle in the United Kingdom (though we must keep in mind that all of these practices were a lot less standard and well-documented in the pre-Hollywood days; calling it “distribution” is generous). When that film was recovered in the 1980’s, English-language film historians typically titled the film The House of the Devil or The Manor of the Devil, a more direct translation of its French title, even though it was never distributed as such in its time. The Aurum Film Encyclopedia of Horror lists most of these variations of the film’s name in its entry; IMDb goes with The House of the Devil whereas the open-source TMDB (which Letterboxd uses as a data set) settled on The Haunted Mansion, the orginal US distribution title.
I bring up the title of the other film because this film has some collision, and given that both were produced within a couple of months of each other, it causes some confusion if you’re not paying close attention. This film, the remake, was titled Le Château hanté by Melies. It was distributed in the US as The Devil’s Castle and in The Haunted Castle in the UK. These days, film historians all typically land on The Haunted Castle, a direct translation of the French and the title used in the UK. All modern sources I’ve seen have used this name. This is the same title that TMDB uses for the original 1896 film as well, meaning that the original and remake have the same name on Letterboxd.
So, thus far, that’s actually not too complicated: Other than TMDB/Letterboxd, if you see The House of the Devil, it means the 1896 film, and if you see The Haunted Castle, it means the 1897 remake. Don’t worry, it gets more complicated. You see, Melies was good friends with another performer and filmmaker, an English fellow named George Albert Smith. In his day, Smith was best known as a psychic and hypnotist, but he was also a magic lantern and film innovator. He bought a print of The Haunted Castle from Melies, as he was interested in trick film techniques like the ones Melies deployed. The bulk of Smith’s films are lost, but as his work was studied, film historians included in his filmography a lost 1897 called The Haunted Castle.
We do not know if George Albert Smith ever actually made a film called The Haunted Castle, or if this is a record-keeping error, and the film attributed to Smith is just Melies’s film. But most sources still cite it as a distinct film, and this ambiguity has resulted in several sources mistaking Melies’s film to be directed by Smith (including the embed included above!). Most film databases, including IMDb and TMDB/Letterboxd, list these as separate films.
So let’s summarize: There is at least one 1897 film called The Haunted Castle, and it’s directed by Melies, though some contemporary records call it by other names. It’s a remake of an 1896 film by Melies usually called The House of the Devil, but occasionally called other names, including The Haunted Castle. Also, there might be another 1897 film called The Haunted Castle by George Albert Smith that is lost, although it might just be Melies’s, but some records mistakenly say Melies’s film is Smith’s, which it isn’t, except it might be.
Clear as mud!
Now that we know what film we’re actually talking about, a brief summary of this 45 second film: Two men are in a castle room; one has a ghostly, double-exposed translucency, while the other corporeal and opaque. Both are dressed like gentlemen. The ghostly man offers the corporeal man a seat, but then vanishes and moves the chair as if by magic. Turns out he’s The Devil! (Or perhaps some other nasty spirit.) The next 30 seconds or so are a few more slapstick pranks that verge into the creepy, mostly repeated bits from The House of the Devil: A spooky skeleton appears, e.g. And then it ends without much conclusion.
A few things to note about the film as a remake of The House of the Devil: Unlike the original, it neither features the intro of the Devil arriving and scheming, then the gentlemen arriving (we’re straight in medias res), nor the finale of Mephistopheles being banished by a crucifix. It’s also more zoomed in and flatly staged, giving Melies less space to work with. The overall effect is of a simpler, nearly non-narrative, story with very basic blocking. It’s more crisply made than the original, but much less fun to my eyes.
The Haunted Castle’s single most striking formal feature represents another major milestone for Melies: It is hand-colored, and that coloring has been preserved. This is the first Melies film and first French film to be hand-colored. It is quite possibly the first live-action narrative film to be in color in cinema history. (Edison’s team had tinkered with hand-coloring as early as 1894 with “peep show”-style proto-films.)
The Haunted Castle features a sharp red in its coloring. Given the film’s subject is the devil, you’d naturally think that the devil character is colored red, but you’d be wrong. It’s in fact the gentleman being tormented by the devil who is red: The shape-shifting devil is actually white.
In general, the effects are done well here. I’m not sure if it’s the few more months experience, or else the opportunity to focus on a film that’s only a quarter as long as The House of the Devil, but the substitution splices are noticeably cleaner and smoother than before. The double exposure is more subtle. The timing and seams of the edits are less jumpy.
But even with the color and crisp effects, I don’t like this quite as much as The House of the Devil, which better leans into haunted house slapstick and captures a more madcap energy, plus its ambivalent conclusion. But even among the remake and title confusion, The Haunted Castle shows Melies continue to refine his craft and build towards the gems that were a couple years down the line.
- Review Series: Georges Melies
Is It Good?
Nearly Good (4/8)
A few words on "Is It Good?" ratings for early cinema.
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