Bluebeard (1901)

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

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

In this Melies film, he stays pretty true to the legend. A man who has managed a great fortune, talks another man into giving him his daughter in marriage. She resists, but the financial gains clinch the deal. They have a really interesting wedding feast with huge foodstuffs. Now he takes her into the courtyard and tells her the whole castle is hers, except for the one room. He gives her a key but forbids her to use it. Of course, she does and realizes what her fate is going to be--there are seven women hanging in the room (pretty harsh stuff). Anyway, it is now up to her to be enterprising and survived. The conclusion is a bit scattered, but it's fun anyway.

It's certainly difficult to make a silent, black-and-white movie about a title character that already has a color in his name. And I have to say Méliès did not fail entirely in his attempt here, but it's still not a really good achievement by any means in my opinion. There was so much going on all the time on the screen in this one that it was actually difficult to follow and only understand the very basic elements of what exactly was happening. This film runs for almost 10 minutes, which was fairly long for that era, but not entirely uncommon for Méliès whose films became longer and longer by 1901. All in all, still I have to say I was not really impressed watching this and I hoped it would be better looking at its IMDb-rating. Not recommended.

Bluebeard (1901) aka Barbe-bleue ** 1/2 (out of 4) An interesting if not totally successful film from Georges Melies. After seven wives have mysterious died, Bluebeard holds a contest to pick his eighth wife. Things are going as planned until the ghosts of the seven previous wives show up. This here is certainly a horror film from start to finish but it's a shame the film gets off to such a weak start. The ending, with the wives returning, is very well done.In early 2008 a box set with over 170 Meiles films will be released and it's certainly long overdue.

this movie has great backgrounds from the castle,the greatest moment is a real horror moment when the woman goes into the forbidden room and finds the hanged 7 ladies all former wives of bluebeard,another great moment is when the woman sleeps and dreams when the ghosts of the 7 dead wives and the dancing keys appears.