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The Clown and Automobile

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Wikipedia article




'Automaboulisme et Autorit (scne comique clownesque)', released in the United States as 'The Clown and Automobile' and in the United Kingdom as 'The Clown and Motor Car', is an 1899 French silent film directed by Georges Mlis. It was released by Mlis's Star Film Company and is numbered 194195 in its catalogues.

The film was presumed lost until 2011, when a hand-colored fragment on nitrate film was found among a collection donated to the Cinmathque Franaise.

Summary



Though the print rediscovered in 2011 only comprises fragments of the original, Mlis's film catalogues provide a summary of the complete film:

Legacy



When writing about his childhood, the filmmaker Jean Renoir described a short silent film he saw as a child in 1902, featuring a clown called "Automaboul." The film made a vivid impression on Renoir, who said in 1938 that he "would give almost anything to see that program again. That was real cinema, much more than the adaptation of a novel by Georges Ohnet or a play by Victorien Sardou can ever be." The film scholar Alexander Sesonske has suggested that the film Renoir remembered was Mlis's 'Automaboulisme et Autorit'.

References



Category:Films directed by Georges Mlis

Category:French comedy films

Category:French black-and-white films

Category:1899 films

Category:1890s rediscovered films

Category:French silent short films

Category:Comedy films about clowns

Category:Rediscovered French films

Category:1890s short films

Category:Silent comedy films


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