Playing Cards (film)
| Playing Cards | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Georges Méliès |
Release date |
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Running time | 67 seconds |
| Country | France |
| Language | Silent |
Playing Cards (French: Une partie de cartes, literally "A Card Party") is an 1896 French black-and-white silent actuality film by Georges Méliès. It was the first film in Méliès' prolific career, and thus is number one in his Star Film catalogue. It is a remake of Louis Lumière's film The Messers. Lumière at Cards, which was released earlier the same year. Along with Georges Méliès himself, his brother Gaston Méliès and daughter Georgette Méliès both appear in the film.
Synopsis
It is afternoon in a French garden. Three men are sitting at a table, two of them playing cards while the third smokes and reads a newspaper. The man who is not playing cards calls over a young girl and has her fetch a woman with a bottle of wine. He proceeds to pour glasses for himself and his friends. After drinking the wine, the man reads a story out of the newspaper, and his friends laugh.
Survival
The film, long presumed lost,[1] was rediscovered after 1981 and included on a home video release in 2008.[2]
References
- ^ Essai de reconstitution du catalogue français de la Star-Film; suivi d'une analyse catalographique des films de Georges Méliès recensés en France, Bois d'Arcy: Service des archives du film du Centre national de la cinématographie, 1981, p. 51, ISBN 2903053073, OCLC 10506429
- ^ Méliès, Georges (2008), Georges Méliès: First Wizard of Cinema (DVD; short film collection), Los Angeles: Flicker Alley, ISBN 1893967352
