The Amazing Movie Show: The Man with the Rubber Head (1901)

Alternate Titles: L’Homme à la tête en caoutchouc (French title); The Man with the India-Rubber Head

Country: France

Length: 2’31”

Black and White

Mise en scène: Georges Méliès

Starring: Georges Méliès

Production Company: Star Film

Synopsis (translated from the Star Film Catalog, 1902, Page 13): A chemist in his laboratory places his own living head on a table then, attaching a rubber pipe and bellows, begins to inflate the head with all his strength. Immediately the head increases in volume, and grimacing, takes on colossal proportions. The chemist fearing the head may burst, opens a tap on the pipe; at once the head deflates and returns to its natural dimension. The chemist then calls his assistant and informs him of his discovery. The assistant, wishing to see for himself, seizes the bellows and starts to blow violently. The head, becoming enormous, bursts with a crash, astounding the two operators. The furious chemist seizes his assistant and throws him out of the window [in actual fact a door].

Review: Star Films #382–383 is one of Georges Méliès’ most celebrated works. The Man with the Rubber Head is a major step up from his earlier trick films, which often relied on simple substitution, or more complex multiple exposures to achieve the desired effect. Here, to achieve the illusion of the expanding head, Méliès created a ramp, which moved towards the camera, with Méliès sitting on a chair, his head sticking through a hole in a table covered in black cloth.

The effect works well, despite a few moments where his head bounces above the table top, and it’s indicative of Méliès ingenious approach that he chose to move himself towards the camera, rather the move the heavy and sensitive camera equipment towards him.

Scoffing at the attempts of his Pathé competitor, Ferdinand Zecca, to replicate this effect, Méliès said in a 1935 interview with Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinémathèque française (printed in the magazine Cinema 71, Paris 1971), “Zecca sought in vain to reproduce the trick by bringing his camera to the severed head; which then overflowed the plane of the table progressively as it enlarged. I did it otherwise, advancing towards the camera, rising up little by little in such a way so that my chin rested on the plane of the table.”

It is likely that Méliès was influenced by a book first published in 1897 named Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions; Including Trick Photography, compiled and edited by Albert A. Hopkins (editor of the Scientific American Cyclopedia of Receipts, Notes and Queries), which was the first publication to expose the workings of stage magic tricks by the likes of Robert-Houdin (whose theater Méliès owned), and others including Buatier de Kolta (whose vanishing lady act formed the basis of Méliès' first film), and Maskelyne and Cooke. One chapter is entirely devoted to “Photographic Diversions”, including “Photography upon a Black Ground” and “Photographing a Human Head upon a Table”.

Set design and painting are well up to Méliès usual standards, with a prominent Star Film logo on the left, which was intended to combat copyright theft (mainly by Philadelphia-based entrepreneur Siegmund Lubin), unfortunately this proved unsuccessful and two years later, Georges’ brother, Gaston (who previously ran a shoe company in Charing Cross Road, London with brother Henri), opened a Star Film office at 204 East 38th Street, New York (now home to an aquarium store and gym), with the stated aim: “energetically to pursue all counterfeiters and pirates.” (Star Film Catalogue, New York, 1903).

Watch on DVD

Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913). Flicker Alley; DVD Region 1.

Watch on YouTube: Georges Méliès - L'homme a la tête en caoutchouc (1901)