The Diabolic Tenant (1909)

Simply A Masterpiece

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

If you compare this 1909 6-minute movie to Georges Méliès, you will see that they have basically nothing in common anymore. the reason was probably that film was developing so quickly into new directions that the old legends had trouble to keep up with the medium. First of all, this is not a one man show anymore like almost everything else he did. Actually Méliès own son plays a character here. And then there are the colors of course, probably the most innovative factor. Still, all of this did not really save this film. I was not too impressed watching this and certainly do not consider it among Méliès finest works. This was already almost at the end of Méliès career and when a couple years later sound became a factor, he did not go along with the new changes, but simply stopped making movies. But it's fine that way. he still left us an admirable body of work. Nonetheless, I do not consider "The Diabolic Tenant" among his most outstanding achievements.

I've seen quite a few Melies film over the last couple of years - mostly in roughly chronological order - and watching them in this way drives home just how impossible he found it to adapt to the changing times. Like Emile Reynaud before him, Melies failed to evolve, and essentially ended up repeating the same story over and over by simply varying small details. He could easily have staged this film, in which the devilish tenant of the title produces the furniture for his new dwelling from a carpetbag, as a basic magic show, because there isn't really much of a story. Melies film career would pretty much be dead within another five years, which is a sad thing - had he been able to harness that incredible energy that is evident in every frame of this stencil-coloured film to develop all aspects of his filmmaking talents he might have gone on indefinitely...

Devilish Tenant, The (1909) aka Locataire diabolique, Le *** (out of 4)Georges Melies film about a man who rents an apartment and furnishes the entire thing with one box. It's easy to see how the trickery was done in this film but that doesn't take away from the fun. The real highlight is the wonderful ending of how the man finally gets rid of everything.In early 2008 a box set with over 170 Meiles films will be released and it's certainly long overdue.

This colorful and creative Georges Méliès feature takes a basic gag idea and uses it as the basis for several minutes of interesting and entertaining camera tricks. It is also one of the few surviving Méliès movies that have hand-tinted color, and while the color of the print has now somewhat faded, it still looks good enough to enhance the overall effect.The story starts with a man renting an unfurnished room, and then most of it is simply a wide variety of visual effects as the tenant furnishes his new apartment with things that he amazingly pulls out of a carpetbag. It's interesting and very detailed, and if you've ever seen "Mary Poppins", the basic effect is remarkably similar to the scene in which Mary moves into the Banks home and furnishes her room. The special effects in Méliès's movie are not as polished, but on the other hand it gets even more mileage out of the idea.This feature was made somewhat later than were most of Méliès's best-known movies, but it's easily one of the finest efforts of his later years as a film-maker. It takes one basic idea and makes it into an interesting and imaginative film.