The '?' Motorist (1906)

Directed by

Walter R. Booth

Genre

fantasy film, comedy film, silent film, science fiction film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

3 min

Rating

6.5 of 10 from 63 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A man gets into a car and drives off on a wild ride. He goes up into the sky and around the moon, then crashes into a house. The film uses visual tricks to show these impossible events.

whimsicalplayfulfast-pacedinventiveslapstickdreamlikelightheartedmischievous

What happens

The '?' Motorist is a 1906 British silent comedy trick film, commonly called "The Mad Motorist" or "Questionmark Motorist" and directed by Walter R. Booth. Released in October 1906, the film is "one of the last films that W.R. Booth made for the producer-inventor R.W. Paul," and, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "looks forward to the more elaborate fantasies that Booth would make for Charles Urban between 1907 and 1911, as well as drawing on a wide range of the visual tricks that Booth had developed over the preceding half-decade." Booth later remade the film as The Automatic Motorist in 1911. The film has also been compared to the work of Georges Méliès and "The Impossible Voyage." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

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• The Flying House (1921)
• An Extraordinary Cab Accident (1903)
• The Automatic Motorist (1911)
• The Hilarious Posters (1906)
• The Impossible Voyage (1904)
• The Duke's Good Joke (1908)
• The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship (1905)