''Sorcellerie culinaire (scène clownesque)'', released in the US as ''The Cook in Trouble'' and in the UK as ''Cookery Bewitched'', is a 1904 French silent

trick film In the early history of cinema, trick films were short silent films designed to feature innovative special effects. History The trick film genre was developed by Georges Méliès in some of his first cinematic experiments, and his works remain the ...

directed by

Georges Méliès Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès (; ; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French illusionist, actor, and film director. He led many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. Méliès was well known for the use o ...

. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 585–588 in its catalogues.

Production

Méliès plays the cook in the film. Special effects used include

pyrotechnic Pyrotechnics is the science and craft of creating such things as fireworks, safety matches, oxygen candles, explosive bolts and other fasteners, parts of automotive airbags, as well as gas-pressure blasting in mining, quarrying, and demolition ...

s and

substitution splice The substitution splice or stop trick is a cinematic special effect in which filmmakers achieve an appearance, disappearance, or transformation by altering one or more selected aspects of the mise-en-scène between two shots while maintaining th ...

s. The action of the film is a variation on the "trapdoor chase", a type of spectacular chase sequence particularly associated with the

Lupino family The Lupino family () is a British theatre family which traces its roots to an Italian émigré of the early 17th century. The "Lupino" name is derived from two unrelated families: *the original Luppino or Lupino family, seventeenth century emigre ...

of performers, including

Lupino Lane Henry William George Lupino (16 June 1892 – 10 November 1959) professionally Lupino Lane, was an English actor and theatre manager, and a member of the famous Lupino family, which eventually included his cousin, the screenwriter/director/act ...

. In Méliès's version, the trapdoors are designed as openings within the kitchen set: a window, an oven door, a pot, a drawer, and so on. Describing the film for British exhibitors,

Charles Urban Charles Urban (April 15, 1867 – August 29, 1942) was an Anglo-American film producer and distributor, and one of the most significant figures in Cinema of the United Kingdom, British cinema before the First World War. He was a pioneer of the doc ...

's film catalogue called the result "acrobatic".

Reception and survival

With its fast-paced antics, designed to build up a hectic visual rhythm rather than to advance a narrative, ''The Cook in Trouble'' has been seen as a particularly

modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

Méliès film, presaging

Dadaism Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

and

Surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

as well as

Mack Sennett Mack Sennett (born Michael Sinnott; January 17, 1880 – November 5, 1960) was a Canadian-American film actor, director, and producer, and studio head, known as the 'King of Comedy'. Born in Danville, Quebec, in 1880, he started in films in th ...

's chase films. Film historian John Frazer, who praised ''The Cook in Trouble'' as "one of the high peaks among the films of Georges Méliès" and compared it with

Alfred Jarry Alfred Jarry (; 8 September 1873 – 1 November 1907) was a French symbolist writer who is best known for his play '' Ubu Roi'' (1896). He also coined the term and philosophical concept of 'pataphysics. Jarry was born in Laval, Mayenne, France, ...

's ''

Ubu Roi ''Ubu Roi'' (; "Ubu the King" or "King Ubu") is a play by French writer Alfred Jarry, then 23 years old. It was first performed in Paris in 1896, by Aurélien Lugné-Poe's Théâtre de l'Œuvre at the Nouveau-Théâtre (today, the Théâtre de ...

'', commented: According to the summary in Méliès's American catalogue, ''The Cook in Trouble'' originally ended with the cook's clothes being retrieved from the cooking pot; this ending is missing from the surviving copy of the film.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cook In Trouble Films directed by Georges Méliès Trick films 1904 films French silent films French black-and-white films