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» » Les douze travaux d'Hercule (1910)

Short summary

1. Hercules discovers an excellent method of tanning the skin of the Nemean lion. 2. Without effort he cuts off the seven heads of the Lerneau hydra. E. With equal ease he captures the wild boar of Erymanthus. 4. He checks in dexterous manner the flight of the golden-horned and heaven-hoofed deer of Manale. 5. When the fantastic birds of the Stymphalian Lake play tricks upon him, he quells them with one movement of his hand. 6. Now he destroys the terrible Amazon troop and takes their queen, Hippolyte, prisoner; when he begins to fall in love with her she escapes and goes to the infernal regions. 7. He forces the river Alpheus to give all her water to clean Augeas' stables. 8. In the meanwhile he has an encounter with the Cretan bull, subsequently killed by Theseus at Marathon. 9. As the wicked king Diomedes is in the habit of giving his visitors to his horses for food, Hercules forces these noble steeds to taste their own master's flesh. 10. Hercules, not at all troubled by the three...

Released in the US as a split reel along with Princess and Pigeon (1910).

User reviews


  • comment
    • Author: Samowar
    When we think of animation, we usually think of animated drawings. There are, however, several different schools and methods. There is the stop-motion modeling done by Willis O'Brien, Harryhausen and Vinton. And there is the jointed silhouette method favored of Lotte Reiniger.

    Not surprisingly, Emile Cohl worked in all the various animation styles, although in a far more primitive manner than they would become. Here, in this short in which Hercules' Twelve Labors are reproduced, it's by means that are similar to Reiniger's, although the figures are not black silhouettes on a painted background, but jointed figures on a black background.

    There is none of the sense of intimacy of Reiniger's work, but then, this is still very early days and Cohl was still working in the mode of trick films in which the animation was as much the point of the film as the story.
  • Cast overview:
    Maurice Vinot Maurice Vinot
    Alice Tissot Alice Tissot
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