The Helping Hand (1908 French film)

The Helping Hand (French: Pour les p'tiots, literally "For the Little Ones") was a 1908 French short silent film by Georges Méliès.

The Helping Hand
Publicity still for the film
Directed byGeorges Méliès
Production
company
Release date
  • October 1908 (1908-10) (US)[1]
CountryFrance
LanguageSilent

Plot

An impoverished father, with his young son and daughter, begs for food in a marketplace. When a merchant angrily turns them away, their plight attracts the attention of a woman of charity. Calling shame upon the unkind merchant, she buys the poor family some food, talks with the family, and adopts the two children. Marketplace workers, witnessing the scene, give the father work as a sign carrier.[2]

Release

The Helping Hand was sold by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 1326–1328 in its catalogues.[3] The American trade periodical The Moving Picture World, in a brief notice about some of Méliès' films, praised The Helping Hand for offering "a wholesome lesson of charity."[4]

The film is currently presumed lost.[3]

References
  1. Malthête, Jacques (October 1982), "Sur les traces des 'Star' Films disparus", Les dossiers de la cinémathèque, 10, pp. 52–67
  2. "The Latest Films", The Film Index, 3 (39): 10–12 (here 11), 10 October 1908
  3. Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, p. 354, ISBN 9782732437323
  4. "Comments on Film Subjects", The Moving Picture World, 3 (18): 338–39, 31 October 1908
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