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Between Calais and Dover
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Wikipedia article
'Entre Calais et Douvres', known in English both as 'Between Dover and Calais' and as 'Between Calais and Dover', is an 1897 short silent comedy film by Georges Mlis.
Plot
On the deck of a steamboat labelled "Robert-Houdin Star Line", passengers experience a rough crossing of the English Channel. Among them, a bewhiskered man in a checked suit attempts to fight off seasickness, a heavily bearded clergyman strikes up conversations with upset travelers, and a captain surveys the pandemonium from an upper deck.
Production and release
The film was filmed outside in the garden of Mlis's property in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, with painted scenery. The rolling motion of the ship was created by a special articulated platform, built by Mlis for 'Sea Fighting in Greece' the same year. The placard "Robert-Houdin Star Line" refers to Mlis's Thtre Robert-Houdin as well as to the trademark for his film business, "Star Film". The set of the film also includes a trademark with the initials "M.R.," referring to Mlis and Lucien Reulos, a colleague who was then Mlis's business partner.
The film features Mlis himself as the man in the checked suit; Georgette Mlis, his daughter, as the young girl with the doll; and Joseph Grapinet, a sculptor from Montreuil, as the man who is holding binoculars in the film's surviving production still. The staging gives an early example of Mlis's talent for planning seemingly chaotic comedy scenes; according to film historian John Frazer, "A rough and tumble choreography had been prepared and rehearsed so that in the midst of the general melee significant actions are successively pointed up." Later, more developed examples of this farce choreography in Mlis's work include scenes in 'The Cook in Trouble' (1904) and 'The Merry Frolics of Satan' (1906).
The film was released by Mlis's Star Film Company and is numbered 112 in its catalogues, where it was advertised as a 'scne comique bord d'un paquebot' ("comic scene on board a steamship"). The first known English-language title for the film is 'Between Dover and Calais', but the title 'Between Calais and Dover' has also been used in academic writing and for home video release.
References
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