Underplayed Gems

The Terrible Turkish Executioner (1904)

The Terrible Turkish Executioner poster
Original title
Le Bourreau turc
Directed by
Georges Méliès
Genre
fantasy film, comedy film, silent film
Country
France
Runtime
3 min
Rating
6.2 of 10 from 28 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A Turkish executioner tries to behead prisoners in a comic fantasy. Their heads keep coming off but the victims do not die. The executioner gets a surprising punishment for his troubles.

whimsicaldarkly comicplayfulsurrealfast-pacedcampyslapstickinventive

What happens

Le Bourreau turc, sold in the United States as The Terrible Turkish Executioner, or It Served Him Right and in Britain as What Befell the Turkish Executioner, is a 1903 French silent trick film by Georges Méliès. It was sold by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 534–535 in its catalogues. Méliès himself plays the executioner in the film, one of several Méliès works involving disembodied heads. The special effects are created with substitution splices. The execution in the film emulates an effect popular for two centuries in magic lantern shows, in which severed heads or similar phenomena could be shown in motion using overlaid glass slides. In a study of Méliès, Elizabeth Ezra notes that the film "exploits the stereotype of Oriental despotism and cruelty," with the prop heads giving "a visceral immediacy closer to Tarantino's lurid (though ironic) gore than to Méliès's standard dancing Disney-style body parts." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

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