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Simply Perfect

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

This rather drab imitation of a Méliès film appears in the C-series Gaumont catalogue, films that Alice Guy categorically stated were not her work and which she believed to have been made by some outside contractor. In fact they seem to have been the work of Georges Hatot who worked for Gaumont in 1898-99. Many of the films in this section of the catalogue are on historical subjects (Hatot's speciality) and many are simply remakes of films he had already made for the Lmières during his time with them (1896-1898).Alice Guy was not a copyists and it does her reputation no good that critics and biographers and the Gaumont company itself continue, for no good reason, to ascribe such films to her.

Turn-of-the-Century Blind Man, The (1898) ** 1/2 (out of 4) At the Hypnotists (1898) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Burglars, The (1898) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Disappearing Act (1898) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Surprise Attack on a House at Daybreak (1898) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Five more films from Alice Guy from the Gaumont Treasures box set from Kino. THE TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY BLIND MAN is a pretty simple and straight-forward prank film as a homeless man is pushed off a park bench by a police officer. The poor man then puts his outfit on a rich man sleeping in that same chair just to see the officer go after him. AT THE HYPNOTISTS has pretty much what you'd expect from a film with its title as a hypnotist makes a man do various funny things. THE BURGLARS takes place on a rather obvious but funny set as two crooks try to break into a house as a couple cops come after them. DISAPPEARING ACT is a poor man's Melies wannabe as a magician makes a woman turn into a devil then turns it back into a man. The final film, SURPRISE ATTACK ON A HOUSE AT DAYBREAK is without question the most impressive of this group as soldiers close in on another group of soldiers held up in a house. This short, running a brief 50-seconds, is without question the highlight here as we get a pretty good battle sequence that was years before the work of Griffith would come into play. Guy handles the material quite well and manages to make the film feel a lot bigger than it actually is. The other four films are all a mixed bag as the middle three come off as lesser copies of films we've seen from both Edison and Melies. The first film also doesn't come off very original and only works as a mild interest to those who enjoy these early films.

There existed no such thing as a copyright for a motion picture in the first decade of their existence, so the various production companies borrowed freely from each other -- when they did not simply take a print of the other fellow's work and produce more copies for sale.However, by examining what was being remade, we can gain an idea of what was popular. Here, looking at this early Alice Guy short, in which a long-haired magician seems to turn a young woman into a large monkey and then into thin air, we can see that people were already taking notice of what Georges Melies was doing, and of his techniques.It should be said in defense of Mme. Guy and Gaumont that their magician, setting and assistants did not look in the least like Melies'. On the other hand, there is none of the sheer joy of performance that Melies exhibited.