Buncoed Stage Johnnie

Buncoed Stage Johnnie (French: Pour l'étoile S.V.P.) was a 1908 French silent comedy film produced by Georges Méliès. It was directed either by Méliès or by his assistant, an actor known as Manuel.

Buncoed Stage Johnnie
Directed byGeorges Méliès or Manuel
Produced byGeorges Méliès
StarringFernande Albany
Production
company
Release date
1908
CountryFrance
LanguageSilent

Plot

A stage actress's wealthy admirer, or "Stage Door Johnnie", brings a bouquet to the theatre and asks a stagehand to pass it along to the admired actress. The stagehand, for a practical joke, changes the card on the bouquet so that it appears to be meant for the theater's lady janitor. The janitor, accepting the flowers, sends the Stage Door Johnnie a note telling him to meet her at the stage door. The Stage Door Johnnie, shocked to see the janitor approaching, tries unsuccessfully to escape her embrace. He finally struggles away, as the theatre's stagehands laugh at the success of the joke.[1]

Production

Fernande Albany played the janitor in the film.[2] The scene in front of the stage door was shot outdoors, on Méliès's property in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, in front of the remaining section of a house that had belonged to his father Louis Méliès. (Some of the house had been taken down during the construction of Méliès's second and larger film studio, Studio B.)[3] Georges Méliès had previously used the same location for his 1907 film The Good Luck of a "Souse".[2]

Based on an analysis of the surviving fragments of the film, a publication on Méliès's films by the Centre national du cinéma suggested that Buncoed Stage Johnnie may possibly have been directed not by Méliès himself but by his production assistant, the actor Manuel.[2]

Release and survival

The film was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and was numbered 1310–1313 in its catalogues.[3] The surviving print of the film is incomplete, making it difficult to follow the narrative continuity. The rest of the film is presumed lost.[2]

References
  1. Since only fragments of the film survive, this summary is adapted from "Stories of the Films", Moving Picture World, 3 (13): 242, 26 December 1908.
  2. Essai de reconstitution du catalogue français de la Star-Film; suivi d'une analyse catalographique des films de Georges Méliès recensés en France, Bois d'Arcy: Service des archives du film du Centre national de la cinématographie, 1981, p. 326, ISBN 2903053073
  3. Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, p. 254, ISBN 9782732437323
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