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Up-to-Date Surgery

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Wikipedia article




'Une indigestion', sold in the United States as 'Up-to-Date Surgery' and in Britain as 'Sure Cure for Indigestion', and also known as 'Chirurgie fin de sicle', is a 1902 French short silent film by Georges Mlis.

Production



'Up-to-Date Surgery' is strongly reminiscent of, and was probably inspired by, "Le Charlatan Fin de Sicle" ("The Turn-of-the-Century Charlatan"), an 1892 stage illusion at Mlis's Paris venue, the Thtre Robert-Houdin. The stage illusion was a comic sketch in which an English patient, John Patt de Cok, visits the celebrated quack doctor Giuseppe Barbenmacaroni. Grotesque misadventures ensue, culminating in the patient exploding into pieces (though his head stays alive and well). The stage illusion also recalls at least two other Mlis films, 'Twentieth Century Surgery' (1900) and 'The Doctor's Secret' (1909).

Mlis appears in the film as the doctor with the saw. From this film onward, Mlis shot two separate original camera negatives for each of his films: one for the domestic market, and one for foreign export.

Themes



The film combines two recurring themes in Mlis's work: parodies of medical science, and body parts separated from their bodies. The latter was a common theme for trick films in the first years of cinema, such as Cecil Hepworth's 'Explosion of a Motor Car' (1900) and Alice Guy's 'Chirurgie fin de sicle' (1901).

Film scholar Tom Gunning, who posits that the theme of separated body parts is "derived ultimately from shamanism", comments that 'Up-to-Date Surgery' could be seen as a sequel to the landmark James Williamson film 'The Big Swallow' (1901); both are concerned with the body's "mysterious inner space".

Release



The film was sold by Mlis's Star Film Company and is numbered 422425 in its catalogues. The earliest known English-language titles are 'Up-to-Date Surgery' (in the US market) and 'Sure Cure for Indigestion' (in the UK); the title 'Chirurgie fin de sicle' has also been used by writers discussing the film. The Lubin Manufacturing Company re-released the film in the United States under the title 'Dr. Lorenz Outdone' (Adolf Lorenz was a famous surgeon of the time), describing the doctor character as "Dr. Lorenz No. 2".

A print of the film survives at the George Eastman Museum.

References




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