Les débuts d'un aéronaute (Titel Blatt)

Les débuts d'un aéronaute

Weitere Titel: Lehrzeit eines Luftschiffers (D, Ö)/ The Aeronaut's First Appearance (UK)/ A glorious start (USA) - Regie: (Lucien Nonguet) - Länge: 165m - s/w - Interpret: Max Linder {Luftschiffer} - Produktion: Pathé Frères - Katalog-Nr.: 1793/Juli 07 - Auff.: 18. August 1907 (Graz/ Grazer Bioskop)

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In "The Aeronaut's First Appearance," Pathé have one of the best subjects they have yet produced. The idea of this film is somewhat similar to that sketched in a paragraph in one of our recent issues, and there described as impracticable. If Pathés got the idea for the present subject from our suggestion, they are to be congratulated on the clever way in which they modified it so as to bring out its humorous possibilities. The difficulty of producing a subject of this class, and the evident danger to the actors, will add to the enjoyment with which it will be received by audiences. The first scene shows a beginner going up in a ballon with a companion. It soon rises to a good height, but the grapnell is trailing and, as the ballon passes over a police station, the point catches through the coat of a constable who is gaping at the sky, and swiftly drags him into the air. In scene two the man in blue is gently dropped - splash! - into a canal. Meanwhile the ballon continues its career of destruction and hoists up newspaper kiosks, a perambulator with a child therein, a kennel and its canine occupant, and other articles, all of which fall to the ground and are smashed to pieces. Meanwhile an indignant crowd of injured persons collects. The ballon falls foul of the chimneys on a near-by-house and sends them among the crowd of pursuers, but when it finally grounds they take an adequate revenge on the aeronaut. This film is likely to be a very big success, and should be seen. (Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly, 25.7.1907)

An amateur aeronaut makes a successful ascension and is soon seen far up in the clouds. He is throwing out ballast and the sand boxes cause discomfiture for the pedestrians below. When the balloon has attained its maximum height it begins to descend; and the anchor, which hangs from the long cable beneath the basket of the balloon begins to cause trouble. First it picks up a gendarme and taking him on an involuntary trip through the air, drops him in the river. Then it picks up a newspaper booth which falls to the street. A lady sewing is the next victim. The anchor then picks up a kennel to which a dog is fastened, dropping both on a pile of hay. All of the victims go in pursuit of the balloonist. He sails close to a roof top, grazing and throwing over chimneys and smoke-stacks until the anchor catches in a window. The balloonist begins to ascend and the entire side of the house comes off. Still sailing low, the balloon becomes entangled in a tree and the basket comes to the ground. The aeronaut tries to escape but the crowd is upon him and gives him a severe pummelling. (Pathé films [Supplement 1], 1908)

Max has done many things since he first experimented in ballooning, but probably he has never been guilty of anything so outrageously funny as he appears in this film. (The Bioscope, May 29^th 1913)