Cupid’s Pranks (1908)
After receiving a scolding for falling asleep on the job, Cupid is sent out in search of potential lovers to unite. While flying over a city, he finds a ballroom dance and identifies a likely couple. He is successful in getting them to meet, but many obstacles still stand in the way of Cupid achieving his goal for them. (IMDb)
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Crappy film
A different way of telling a story
A brilliant film that helped define a genre
Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.
. . . comes off more like a lame comic strip in my hometown newspaper titled DENNIS THE MENACE. A general mischief maker, this minion of the Greek love god goes around acting as a general trouble maker (which may explain why he, she or it ends up all bandaged and on crutches by the finale of this 10 minute, 7.83-second short, CUPID'S PRANKS). From mismatched couples to sabotaged automobiles, nothing but problems lie in the wake of the Edison "Cupid." Which may not come as much of a surprise to veteran viewers of the Edison silents, which prove that their general overseer Thomas Edison (of--rightly or wrongly--light bulb fame) was pretty much an overgrown juvenile delinquent at heart himself, capable of humongous business boo-boos (such as his disastrous business plan for iron ore separation, or his equally wrong-headed notions about what America wanted in the way of movie entertainment, and how to get it to them). The one thing Edison knew how to do well was to hire grown-ups (lawyers) to get him out of the countless Edison-the-Menace snafus in which he found himself (leaving America holding the bag in many cases). Too bad old Tom did not hire a lawyer to bail out this ill-fated Cupid!
This short feature is somewhat uneven, with some good moments that make up in part for its slower stretches. It also features some special effects involving the Cupid character, with some of them working pretty well, and others being a little too rough around the edges. The image of Cupid is perhaps overly cute, but it is balanced by the wryness of some of the story developments.The pace moves somewhat irregularly from the first. One early scene is pretty good, with Cupid falling asleep and getting scolded for it, and then being sent off to do his job. There is a fairly lengthy sequence that uses some special effects to show Cupid flying over a city. There are a good number of defects in this part of the print, making it hard to tell just how well made it was. This is followed by another slow sequence that doesn't really develop the story.The main part of the story finally starts when Cupid identifies a couple to unite. It's mostly played for laughs, with a couple of good gags mixed in with other, more routine material. It features some surprisingly cynical moments, which do balance out the tone of the movie somewhat. The closing sequence avoids predictability, but again this part of the print has deteriorated badly over time, rendering many of the details too obscure for it to have its full effect.The deterioration to the print is not, of course, a fault of the film-makers. But the original movie seems pretty uneven to begin with. It does have some good moments that make it worth seeing, but overall it is not really all that good.