The Infernal Cakewalk (1903)

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

There are recurring characters in the Melies canon, and the devil is one of them. Apparently, there is a fixation on what hell would be like and what the devil would look like. I thought the dancing was really fantastic. George's Melies was obviously a multi-talented performer. He was a magician, an actor, director, creator and scene stylist. His closing dance was incredibly addictive. No plot, but has that ever mattered with him?

Melies made hundreds upon hundreds of short films; some of them masterpiece,s others mediocre, many falling somewhere in between. It can be proposed that "The Cake-Walk Infernal" is among his better known works (that is casting aside legendary films like "A Trip to the Moon", "The Voyage Across the Impossible ", or even "The Merry Frolics of Satan"), mainly because of Martin Scorsese's recommendation of it for aspiring filmmakers/film students. This film is just simple, classic Melies with an extra dose of weird. It mostly consists of a parodic version of a dance that seems to have been popular at the time of the film's release; it takes place in Hell, despite the merry mood, and Melies himself plays a reasonably athletic Satan. The visual effects here are quite phenomenal, particularly for 1903 (!), and the sets, while sort of cheesy, are charming and appealing to the eye. There are also plenty of laughs to be had, mainly because of Melies' comic and over the top performance and the trick photography that soon ensues. Those that are rather familiar with Melies and his style will likely be able to appreciate this for what it is: another unique and wild entry in the vast Melies cannon.

What does a Melies musical look like? Well with painted sets, bursts of smoke, a few trick camera shots and the appearance of demons, unsurprisingly it looks like most his other films, only here the tricks will not impress anyone already familiar with Melies skills, and there is no story, so that what we are left is basically 5 minutes of what is some pretty uninspiring dancing.I notice a reviewer above me cited this film as a parody of a popular dance at the time. Of course, more than 100 years on, this context is completely lost, and there is not a laugh to be had. Why Melies felt like making a film that danced to the devil is open to interpretation, but there was certainly no enjoyment in it here.

This film, The Cake-Walk Infernal, is one of silent pioneer Georges Melies' most well known films. There isn't much of a story as much as a succession of images, which Melies energetically parades across the screen with his usual doses of interesting backdrops and costumed characters. At times, some of Melies' films can be overly stagy, and this is one such film. Some common motifs in Melies' films appear here as in characters or objects appearing, disappearing, and reappearing again, the use of smoke effects for transitions, the use of stop action motion, and Melies' appearance as a character with a devilish costume. **1/2 of 4 stars.