1905 – De mésaventure van een Fransch heertje zonder pantalon aan het strand te Zandvoort / The Misadventure of a French Gentleman Without Pants at the Zandvoort Beach

Directed by: Albert Mullens & Willy Mullens

This is one of the earliest films to come out of the Netherlands and was chosen by the Netherlands Film Festival to be among the 16 films of their Canon of Dutch Cinema (Canon van de Nederlandse Film) in 2007. It capitalized on the “chase film” craze (as we’ve seen in A Daring Daylight Robbery (1903) and The Great Train Robbery (1903)) and added a comedic twist to it – the inciting incident is not a robbery but a man who takes off his pants after they get wet on the beach (it was illegal to display one’s legs in public at the time). The situation played out with members of the public unaware that it was an act and thus parallels with contemporary prank shows and films such as Jackass, Subway Monkey Hour (2002) and Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2007) can be found. It ends with a procession through town – an absurd, over-the-top finale.

The production was fraught with problems, starting with their lead actor dropping out due to his fiancée finding it too risque (Willy Mullens had to step in himself) to real policemen finding little amusement in the events that unfolded and taking the crew to the police station. The film received free publicity due to the controversy surrounding its production and newspapers reporting the events as real. Truly, there is no such thing as bad publicity and the film went on to be a considerable success, even showing at Zandvoort’s own Olympia Circus Theater to a full room!

The intertitles broadly translate as: Mijnheer van DOMMELEN was op zekeren middag in zijn strandstoel ingedut… …en de vloed kwam. Help! Help! ik verdrink! …en met muziek voorop…

Mister van DOMMELEN had fallen asleep in his beach chair one afternoon… …and the tide came in. Help! Help! I’m drowning! …and with music at the front…

Bibliography

Ettleman, T. (2017). ‘The Mullens: The Jackasses of Pioneering Dutch Film’, Medium, 20 August. Available at: https://trettleman.medium.com/the-mullens-the-jackasses-of-pioneering-dutch-film-2ac1dea9f930 [Accessed: 3 February 2022].

IMDb contributors (n.d.). ‘De mésaventure van een Fransch heertje zonder pantalon aan het strand te Zandvoort (1905)’, IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1112865/ [Accessed: 3 February 2022].

JEC (2021). ‘De Mésaventure van een Fransch heertje zonder pantalon aan het strand te Zandvoort (1905) The Misadventure of a French Gentleman Without Pants at the Zandvoort Beach‘, A Cinema History. Available at: http://www.acinemahistory.com/2021/04/de-mesaventure-van-een-fransch-heertje.html [Accessed: 3 February 2022].

Wikipedia contributors (2021). ‘Netherlands Film Festival’, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 September. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_Film_Festival [Accessed: 3 February 2022].

Wikipedia contributors (2022). ‘The Misadventure of a French Gentleman Without Pants at the Zandvoort Beach’, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 3 January. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Misadventure_of_a_French_Gentleman_Without_Pants_at_the_Zandvoort_Beach [Accessed: 3 February 2022].

1895 – L’Arroseur Arrosé / The Sprinkler Sprinkled

Directed by: Louis Lumière

Whereas most films at the time were documentaries that chronicled small events (a dance, waves crashing, workers leaving a factory, etc.), L’Arroseur Arrosé (also known as Le Jardinier / The Gardener) presented a complete and self-contained narrative – an early instance of scripted storytelling! The story is circular: we see the gardener in his normal environment, this normality is disrupted by the boy who steps into the frame, and upon the boy being punished for his prank and banished from the screen, a return to normality. The comedy works due to the audience seeing events from an omniscient point-of-view, thus being privy to events unaware to the gardener and anticipating the outcome.

Lumière claimed that film was based on a prank played by his younger brother Édouard on the family gardener François Clerc; however evidence points to him being possibly influenced by a popular comic strip gag that first appeared in Le Chat Noir on July 4, 1885, titled Arrosage public (art: Uzès, the pseudonym of Achille Lemot). Other iterations include Ein Bubenstreich in the October 15, 1886, issue of Fliegende Blätter (art: Hans Schließmann) and the oft-cited L’Arroseur from a 1887 publication by Quantin (art: Hermann Vogel). All closely depict the events from the film. It is not entirely impossible that Édouard, influenced by the comic strip, re-created the scene in real-life and inspired his older brother. Depending on what is to be believed, L’Arroseur Arrosé may be considered the first instance of film adaptation.

Imagerie artistique de la Maison Quantin, Série 4, Planche n°4, 1887 (art: Hermann Vogel).

As copyright law had not yet been defined for this emerging medium, competing filmmakers would often re-shoot popular films and present to audiences as their own. Remakes of this picture include A Surrey Garden (1896; Birt Acres), The Bad Boy and the Gardener (1896; James H. White), L’Arroseur (1896; Georges Méliès), L’Arroseur Arrosé (1897; Alice Guy), A Practical Joke (1898; George Albert Smith). François Truffaut included a homage to it in Les Mistons (1958).

Poster by Marcellin Auzolle.

Its poster was illustrated by Marcellin Auzolle and is the first one designed to promote an individual film (prior emphasis lay on technological novelty of shows).

Bibliography

Burns, P. T. (2010). ‘Chapter Fifteen 1895-1900’, The History of the Discovery of Cinematography. Available at: http://www.precinemahistory.net/1895.htm [Accessed: 18 December 2021].

Cardellini, M. (2010). ‘Arroseurs arrosés’, Töpfferiana. Available at: http://www.topfferiana.fr/2010/10/arroseurs-arroses/ [Accessed: 18 December 2021].

Cousins, R. F. (2001). ‘L’Arroseur Arrose’, Encyclopedia.com. Available at: http://www.encyclopedia.com/movies/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/larroseur-arrose [Accessed: 18 December 2021].

IMDb contributors (n.d.). ‘Tables Turned on the Gardener (1895)’, IMDb. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0000014/ [Accessed: 18 December 2021].

Patrick, N. (2016). ‘The “Sprinkler Sprinkled” is the first ever comedy film from 1895’, The Vintage News. Available at: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/06/21/sprinkler-sprinkled-first-ever-comedy-film-1895/ [Accessed: 18 December 2021].