Lawrence Person's Futuramen

Howard Waldrop and I reviewed Hugo over at Locus Online, which we liked an awful lot.

The film involves (slight spoiler) the work of French film pioneer Georges Méliès, who produced, directed, wrote, and starred in over 500 silent short films, many of which no longer exists. But several of the ones that do are up on YouTube, and I thought I would gather them here. Méliès, a former stage magician, was the first to create a number of optical effects.

His most famous film, A Trip to the Moon, with the classic image of the shell embedded in the man-in-the-moon’s eye.

Interestingly, this was not his first film featuring the moon, as shown by The Astronomer’s Dream:

Another interplanetary voyage, this time by train, to the sun (in hand-tinted color, no less):

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea:

The Haunted Castle:

Mélies himself is front and center as each of The Four Troublesome Heads:

Likewise as the Man With the Rubber Head: