La douche du colonel (1902) watch online HD

Colonel's Shower Bath, The (1902)

** (out of 4)

aka Douche du colonel

This film here runs just under a minute and is one of those one-joke films. We see a Colonel show up and start shouting orders to his men but the Colonel gets an unwelcomed shock when a bucket of water is dropped on him. Throughout the early days of cinema there were all sorts of films like this but this one here just didn't work for me. When the actual joke happens it didn't have me laughing so in the end the film was fairly worthless. The sets were the one good thing but this isn't the type of film you want to see from director Melies.

Two men are painting a wall, standing on some scaffolding. Under the scaffolding are some military men. Along comes the Colonel as one of the painters goes away for a moment to get a full bucket of paint. Need I say more? Unlike so many of the master's films, this one really has few surprises and almost no animation. He may have run out of ideas for a moment.

La douche du colonel" is a very short film from almost 115 years ago. With that in mind and the director being Georges Méliès, you should not be surprised to read that this is a silent black-and-white film. It is not from the very first days of cinema or Méliès' career, but obviously still from very early days of motion pictures. Thumbs up for this film having a bigger cast than usual, solid costume design and a plot. Sadly, the latter is not really that easy to understand, which hurts the film overall. I guess it is bearable for a 1-minute movie, but even back then, better films were made already. Not everyone can be a winner, not even for such a genius like Méliès. I give it a thumbs down overall.