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Tunnelling the English Channel

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Wikipedia article




'Tunneling the English Channel' ( / 'Tunnel under the Channel, or the Franco-English Nightmare') is a 1907 silent film by pioneer filmmaker Georges Mlis. The plot follows King Edward VII and President Armand Fallires dreaming of building a tunnel under the English Channel.

Production



The idea of building a tunnel under the Channel was much discussed in 1907; Mlis's film is a highly topical take on the popular subject. Mlis appears in the film as the engineer who presents the blueprints for the tunnel. Fernande Albany, an actress who also appeared in Mlis's 'The Impossible Voyage', 'An Adventurous Automobile Trip', and 'The Conquest of the Pole', plays the leader of the Salvation Army parade. King Edward was played by a wash-house attendant who closely resembled the monarch, reprising a role he had played five years before in Mlis's film 'The Coronation of Edward VII'. Special effects used in the film include stage machinery, pyrotechnics, substitution splices, superimpositions, and dissolves.

Release and reception



'Tunneling the English Channel' was released by Mlis's Star Film Company and is numbered 936950 in its catalogues, where it was advertised as a 'fantaisie burlesque grand spectacle en 30 tableaux'. For many of his longer films, Georges Mlis prepared a 'boniment', a spoken commentary explaining the action, to be read aloud while the film was shown; according to the recollections of Mlis's son Andr Mlis, the 'boniment' for 'Tunneling the English Channel' included dialogues between the French president and English king, with the latter speaking French in a thick English accent. The composer Btove (real name Michel Maurice Lvy, 18831965) recorded a piano score for the film in 1946.

American film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum named it as one of his 100 favorite films. The academic Elizabeth Ezra called it "one of Mlis's wittiest and most engaging films."

References




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