Around 1897, early film pioneer and moon hater George Méliès made the movie “Gugusse and the Automaton.” Unfortunately, like many early films, it soon became lost because of poor preservation practices at the time. Due in no small part to the notoriously volatile film stock used during the 1800s.
Thankfully, the long-lost 45-second film has recently been recovered by The Library of Congress.
In September, a box full of about 10 rusted and heavily damaged reels was brought in by Bill McFarland. He made the trip from his home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to the Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia.
As the librarians were evaluating the reels, they saw a black star painted onto a pedestal in the center of the screen, the logo for Méliès’ Star Film company. What followed was a magician and a robot doing battle in a campy, over-the-top fashion.
While it’s always a good day when an early film is recovered, “Gugusse and the Automaton” has special significance to all you sci-fi fans out there. It is the first appearance of (what is technically) a robot on film!
“Gugusse and the Automaton” shows a magician (Méliès) next to an automaton dressed like the famous clown Pierrot. The magician continuously tried to wind up the toy, but with each turn, it began to act out more and more. Tired of its antics, he hits the automaton with a sledgehammer, making it smaller with each blow. Once it’s the size of a doll, he smashes it.
Finding “Gugusse and the Automaton”
“This story is one that you see movies or television shows written about,” says Jason Evans Groth, curator of the Library’s moving image section.
“This is one of the collections that makes you realize why you do this,” adds Courtney Holschuh, the archive technician who unraveled the film. Holschuh is also the one who discovered the film in McFarland’s artifacts.
McFarland’s great-grandfather, William Delisle Frisbee, was a potato farmer who taught at a school in western Pennsylvania. However, his off hours were spent as a traveling showman, driving a horse and buggy from town to town to show movies.
“They must have been thrilled,” McFarland said. “They must have been out of their minds to see this motion picture and to hear the Edison phonograph.”
Méliès made over 500 films. Unfortunately during World War I, the negatives for most of them were melted down for silver and celluloid. And he sadly burned even more after the war. Thankfully, due to the popularity of his work, many people duplicated copies. Thanks to these transfers, about 300 of his films were preserved to some degree. The Library of Congress has about 60 of these remaining titles.
McFarland’s print of “Gugusse and the Automaton” is believed to be about three generations removed from the original.
The reason the Library waited to reveal the discovery is that they recently finished restoring it in 4K. Then, put the whole thing up online to watch, for free. You can check out the full film below:
