50 Fun Facts About Georges Méliès

Before he made films, what was Georges Méliès's profession?

He caught the bug at London's Egyptian Hall and went on to buy the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris.

In what year did Méliès make A Trip to the Moon?

It was the peak of a career that had begun with the first screenings at his theatre in April 1896.

Méliès's family had grown wealthy from what business?

His father ran a high-quality boot factory on the Boulevard Saint-Martin, and Georges learned to sew there.

In which London venue did the young Méliès develop his lifelong passion for magic while working as a clerk?

It was run by the illusionist John Nevil Maskelyne.

Which Paris theatre, founded by a famous magician, did Méliès buy and run?

With it came chief mechanic Eugène Calmels and the performer Jehanne d'Alcy, later his second wife.

One of Méliès's best-known stage illusions featured a professor's head that kept talking after being cut off. What was it called?

He created more than 30 new illusions in nine years at the theatre.

How much did Méliès offer the Lumière brothers for one of their cinematographs after their private demonstration in December 1895?

They refused him, the Musée Grévin's 20,000 and the Folies Bergère's 50,000 the same night.

Rebuffed by the Lumières, Méliès bought a projector in London from which inventor?

He then modified the Animatograph to work as a camera, developing his own films by trial and error.

Méliès nicknamed his patented 1896 cast-iron camera-projector his 'coffee grinder' and what else?

Both names referred to the racket the cast-iron device made; he dropped it for Gaumont, Lumière and Pathé cameras by 1897.

Roughly how many films did Méliès direct between 1896 and 1913?

They ranged from one minute to forty, and 78 came in 1896 alone.

According to his memoirs, Méliès discovered the substitution 'stop trick' by accident when what happened?

A bus turned into a hearse and women into men when the film resumed; Edison had used the effect earlier in a Mary Stuart execution.

In which town just outside Paris did Méliès build his glass-walled film studio in 1896?

Its stage had the same dimensions as the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, and everything was painted in shades of grey for the film.

Why were the sets, costumes and even the actors' makeup at Méliès's studio done in shades of grey?

Selected prints were then hand-coloured frame by frame by the Thuillier workshop.

Who acted as Méliès's primary camera operator when he founded his production house at the end of 1896?

Korsten had co-patented the Kinétographe with him; Reulos was the business partner in Star Film.

In The One-Man Band (1900), Méliès used multiple exposure to play how many characters at once?

He said such shots demanded remembering exactly where he stood at each moment of every previous pass.

Méliès's 1899 film about which political scandal caused fights at screenings and a police ban on its final part?

He was pro-Dreyfus and showed the captain as falsely accused and unjustly imprisoned on Devil's Island.

Méliès's 1899 Cinderella, six minutes long with a cast of over 35, was his first film to feature what?

Its US success prompted Edison and others to make illegal duplicate negatives.

Which novelist's books were the loose basis for A Trip to the Moon, along with H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon?

From the Earth to the Moon and its sequel Around the Moon supplied the cannon-launched capsule.

What character does Méliès himself play in A Trip to the Moon?

He is president of the Astronomers' Club; Mabouloff was his role in The Impossible Voyage two years later.

Who played the Moon aliens, the Selenites, in A Trip to the Moon?

They were named after Selene and exploded when struck.

How was the deep-ocean splashdown at the end of A Trip to the Moon achieved?

The capsule is then towed ashore and the astronomers are fêted by the townsfolk.

Who played Phoebe, the goddess on the crescent moon, in A Trip to the Moon?

Méliès had discovered her singing at the cabaret L'Enfer, and she was his 1899 Cinderella.

The apparent tracking shot toward the Man in the Moon reused a trick from which 1901 Méliès film?

Instead of moving the heavy camera, the actor sat on a pulley-drawn chair on a ramp and rolled toward the lens.

An original hand-coloured print of A Trip to the Moon was rediscovered in what year, before its 2011 restoration?

The film itself had been forgotten until Méliès's rediscovery around 1930.

Widespread US piracy of A Trip to the Moon led Méliès to open a New York office run by whom?

Its charter warned pirates: 'We will not speak twice, we will act!'

Méliès's 1902 film of the coronation of Edward VII was unusual because it was made when?

He was denied access, so he re-enacted it in Montreuil; the postponement let him splice in real footage of the procession.

In The Impossible Voyage (1904), Méliès's explorers accidentally travel to which celestial body?

It has a face like the Man in the Moon and swallows their vehicle whole; a submarine brings them home.

Which 1903 film did critic Jean Mitry call 'undoubtedly Méliès's best film, and in any case the most intensely poetic'?

Prints survive at the British Film Institute and the Library of Congress.

Thomas Edison's 1908 cartel, which Star Film joined and had to supply with 1,000 feet of film a week, was called what?

Méliès made 58 films that year to meet the quota, including the pessimistic Humanity Through the Ages.

Gaston Méliès's Star Film Ranch, opened in 1910 to make Westerns, was in which city?

He produced over 130 films from 1910 to 1912 before losing $50,000 filming in the South Pacific.

Méliès's 1910 deal with which company, which took the deeds to his home and studio, ended up destroying his film career?

Pathé had rival Ferdinand Zecca cut his 54-minute Cinderella down to 33 minutes, and it still lost money.

During World War I, what did the French Army do with over 400 of Star Film's original prints?

The main Montreuil studio became a hospital for wounded soldiers in 1917.

In the 1920s the forgotten Méliès and his wife scraped a living running a candy and toy stall in which Paris station?

Journalist Georges-Michel Coissac tracked him down there in 1924 and began his rehabilitation.

Whom did Méliès marry in December 1925?

His first wife Eugénie Génin had died in May 1913, one of the blows that ended his filmmaking.

Where was the December 1929 gala retrospective held that Méliès called one of the most brilliant moments of his life?

By then journalists had rediscovered him and Ciné-Journal had commissioned his memoirs.

Who presented Méliès with his Légion d'honneur medal in October 1931?

Lumière called him 'the creator of the cinematic spectacle' — a graceful ending to their 1895 rebuff.

In 1932 the Cinema Society found Méliès a home at the film industry's retirement home in which Paris suburb?

There he worked on unmade scripts, including a Baron Munchausen with Hans Richter.

Méliès became the first conservator of which institution when Langlois and Franju gave him the key to their film store in 1936?

They rented an abandoned building on the Orly retirement home's grounds to house their prints.

Méliès died on 21 January 1938, just hours after which other French film pioneer?

Walt Disney had thanked both men in 1936 for 'placing poetry within the reach of the man in the street'.

In which Paris cemetery is Méliès buried?

His last drawing, shown to Langlois and Franju, was a champagne bottle bubbling over: 'Laugh with me, laugh for me, because I dream for you.'

Which 2011 Martin Scorsese film, based on Brian Selznick's novel, dramatises Méliès's later life?

It was Scorsese's first 3D film and won five Oscars from eleven nominations.

Who plays Méliès in Hugo?

The film recreates several of his fantastical stage sets and the Gare Montparnasse toy stall.

How many Academy Awards did Hugo win, from a field-leading 11 nominations?

Despite the acclaim it was a financial disappointment, grossing $185 million on a $150 million budget.

Which band's 1996 video for 'Tonight, Tonight' was heavily inspired by A Trip to the Moon and The Impossible Voyage?

Queen's 1995 'Heaven for Everyone' video used actual footage from A Trip to the Moon.

On 3 May 2018 Méliès was honoured with a Google Doodle that broke new ground. How?

It was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Original Interactive Program.

A picture of Méliès flew around the Moon aboard which 2022 mission?

A fitting trip for the man who first filmed one; the Visual Effects Society logo is also drawn from A Trip to the Moon.

What was the title of Méliès's very first film, a copy of an early Lumière subject?

Many of his earliest films were remakes of Lumière shorts made to compete with the Grand Café's 2,000 daily customers.

How many films did Méliès make in 1899, the year of Robbing Cleopatra's Tomb?

The early horror film shows the queen's mummy resurrected in the modern era; it was long thought lost.

Why did the young Méliès leave the Lycée Michelet, his first school?

He was sent on to the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where teachers still disciplined him for sketching.

Méliès's wife Eugénie Génin bore him two children named what?

Georgette was born in 1888 and André, thirteen years later, in 1901.