Talk:Georges Méliès filmography

Notes on the page design

• Being sortable isn't really important. The year is the only thing that would make sense to sort by, and the list should be in chronological order anyway.
• Furthermore, including the year as a separate column makes sense for most filmographies where any given year has no more than a few films, but not much sense when every single year of the subject's career involved making several of them. Instead, each year can be a space divider as seen in the John Ford filmography
• There should be a column for the English titles. It's commonly used enough in the Notes column for there to be a column dedicated to it.
• Role column isn't necessary. It's a director's filmography. His role is obviously the director. If we REALLY want to include movies he contributed to but did not direct, his exceptional role can be put in the Notes column.

24.34.93.81 (talk) 04:34, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The Devil's Castle

This page says that only fragments of "The Devil's Castle" have survived, however I'm not sure that this is true. The film's Wikipedia page (Seen here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haunted_Castle_(1896_film) ) seems to indicate that the entire film has survived and states that the film is only three minutes long. I have watched the film on youtube and it includes three minutes of the film, so unless the film was originally longer it seems that the entire film has survived. That being said, I do not know much about the film and would like somebody to confirm my suspicions before I make any edits.--Jpcase (talk) 00:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Star Films Catalogue

Many of Georges Melies films have a number in something called a Star Films catalogue. I know that Star Films was Melies' film studio and that Playing Cards, which is listed as number 1 in the catalogue - See here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IKvSErVidQ - was apparently Melies' first film. This leads me to believe that the order of the Star Films catalogue denotes the release order of Melies' films, however I do not know this for sure. One point that confuses me is that some films have multiple numbers in the Star Films Catalogue. For example The Haunted Castle is number 78-80. If the number denotes the order of release, then it wouldn't make any sense for The Haunted Castle to be the 78th, 79th, and 80th film to be released. Its only one film!

Can anyone confirm what the order of films in the Star Films catalogue means? If it does denote release order, then I believe that this order should be worked into this article, as it would be helpful to a reader to know the exact release order of Melies' films. The article currently organizes them by year, but does not specify the order of release for the films within that year.--Jpcase (talk) 18:23, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

• I asked this question on Wikipedia's Reference Desk for Entertainment some time ago and learned that the Star Films catalogue seems to be a list of Melies' films compiled by historians in an attempt to order them according to their release. Since it was not created by Melies himself or his production studio, but was instead compiled many years after the releases of the films, the order is not exact, and is simply an attempt to order the films as closely as possible to their release order. I feel that this information is interesting and could be useful to readers, but unfortunately, the editor who explained all of this to me was unable to supply a reference that could be used to prove all of this. I still feel that the order of films in the Star Films Catalogue should be added to the article (I may do this myself), but unfortunately, no explanation of what the Star Films Catalogue actually is will be able to be added to the article unless a reference is ever found. Hopefully, readers who are interested in learning about it will check this talk page and at least see the best available interpretation of what the Star Films catalogue is. I will copy the conversation that led to the discovery of this information in another section directly below in case anyone is interested. --Jpcase (talk) 18:58, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Conversation concerning Star Films Catalogue

Here is a copy of the conversation that I had with User:Xuxl concerning the Star Films Catalogue. It began at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2012 May 20#Georges Méliès and the Star Films catalogue and then continued at both of our talk pages (User talk:Xuxl#Followup question about Georges Melies' Star Films catalogue and User talk:Jpcase#Méliès)

(From the Reference Desk)

Many of the films created by the legendary French filmmaker Georges Méliès have a number in something called a Star Films catalogue. I know that Star Films was Melies' film studio, and that Playing Cards, which is listed as number 1 in the catalogue - See here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IKvSErVidQ - was apparently Melies' first film. This leads me to believe that the order of the Star Films catalogue denotes the release order of Melies' films, however I do not know this for sure. One point that confuses me is that some films have multiple numbers in the Star Films Catalogue. For example The Haunted Castle is number 78-80. If the number denotes the order of release, then it wouldn't make any sense for The Haunted Castle to be the 78th, 79th, and 80th film to be released. Its only one film!

Can anyone confirm what the order of films in the Star Films catalogue means?--Jpcase (talk) 20:43, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Star Film (in English) was the name of Méliès's production company. The catalogue is simply the list of films he produced in his studios, reconstituted by historians from various written sources after the fact (many of the actual films have been lost); there was never an actual publication called the "Star Film Catalogue", with numbered items. The numbers are an attempt to give some chronological order to his vast production. It seems that the "Haunted Castle" (aka "The Devil's Castle") has three numbers because it's in three 20-metre reels, rather than the usual one reel. In the on-line list here [1], all films on more than one reel have multiple numbers. --Xuxl (talk) 10:34, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for responding! I was worried that my question was too obscure for anyone to answer. So just to be clear; you are saying that when the Star Films catalogue was created, an attempt was made to order the films as closely as possible to their release order, but that the ordering probably isn't exact?-Jpcase (talk) 15:21, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. Let's not forget that the whole cinema business was very different in those days, more akin to producing comedy sketches for county fairs than to today's studio blockbusters, so there is scant documentation available on many of the lost films. --Xuxl (talk) 07:38, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your help! Are there any reliable references that explain all of this? I would love to include this information on the Wikipedia page Georges Méliès filmography--Jpcase (talk) 00:28, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

(From Xuxl's talk page)

Hi. You had answered my question about Georges Melies' Star Films catalogue on the Entertainment Reference Desk, however I asked a followup question and since the discussion has been archived I assumed that you might not have seen it. I was wanting to know if there are any reliable references that explain the information you shared with me, as I would like to include the information on the Wikipedia page Georges Méliès filmography.

Here is a link to our original archived discussion - Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2012 May 20#Georges Méliès and the Star Films catalogue--Jpcase (talk) 18:39, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

(From my talk page)

The information I found on Méliès is the on-line catalogue I linked in one of my answers on the Ref Desk. I'm not sure how reliable that web site is, but it seemed at first glance to be the work of serious film historians. You may want to poke around that site to check out exactly who the writers are. I also double-checked the information against the French-language wikipedia (for example, I was surprised that Méliès' production company had an English name, well before Hollywood had any role in the movie industry, but it was in fact the case). I'm not an expert on Méliès by any means, but I figured that I could try to answer your questions based on my ability to look up things in both French and English. Regards. --Xuxl (talk) 09:36, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

(From Xuxl's talk page)

Thanks for getting back to me! Unfortunately, unless I'm missing something, the website you linked to doesn't seem to mention anything about historians compiling the Star Films catalogue in an attempt to order the films as closely as possible to their release order. This interpretation seems very probable, but without a reference that clearly states it, I won't be able to include it on the Wikipedia page for Georges Méliès filmography. Am I missing something on the filmjournal.net site, or have you seen this information somewhere else? Jpcase (talk) 14:13, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

(From my talk page)

My response was based on cross-referencing information between film net and the French wikipedia. I'm sorry that I don't have actual references for you. These don't seem to exist online. --Xuxl (talk) 14:21, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

End --Jpcase (talk) 19:16, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

A note on referencing and dating

I am in the process of ordering these films according to their placement in the Star Films Catalogue. The numbers and dates that I am using come from this website [2]. Since the site appears to be a blog and I do not know whether it is maintained by anyone with recognized authority on the subject, it unfortunately can not be used as a reference. The Star Films Catalogue however, was not created by the person who runs this website and I have no reason to assume that it was incorrectly copied to the website. I have been unable to locate a reliable (reliable by Wikipedia standards) source that contains the Star Films Catalogue, but I have absolutely no doubt that one exists somewhere, if not online, then perhaps in a book or DVD compilation of Melies' films. Since the order of these films according to the catalogue could be of great use to readers and there is little chance that this article will be nominated to become a Featured Article anytime in the foreseeable future, I do not believe that the order should be removed for lack of reference. If anyone really feels that a reference is needed though, I strongly urge that further research is done in an attempt to find one, before anyone resorts to removing the order from this article. I believe that the Flicker Alley DVD collection may include the order and should be counted as a reliable reference.

I chose to group the films according to the dates listed on the website. Some films were listed under two consecutive years, to denote that it is unclear during which of the two years that the film was released. The Haunted Castle is listed under 1896-1897, but the film's Wikipedia page includes a link to this page [3] stating the specific release date as Christmas Eve, 1896. I am unsure whether this website would fall under Wikipedia's reliability policies either, but even if it doesn't, the information must have come from somewhere and could probably be traced to a reliable source eventually. I chose to simply date everything as it is dated in the first website, but if anyone has any further information, please share. --Jpcase (talk) 21:25, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Just leaving a note that I should have added a long time ago. The filmjournal.net's list for the Star Films Catalogue unfortunately did not contain any titles later than 1902, which is why I stopped in the middle of that year. User:68.99.65.50 added some numbers from the catalogue to films that were released later than 1902 however. I asked where these numbers came from and was directed to these pages [4] [5]

There are still a lot of entries missing though, so if anyone has anything to contribute, please don't hesitate to help or let me know. :) --Jpcase (talk) 19:02, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Referencing

I've just begun adding references to the page, using the Flicker Alley collections as a main source. I had to remove "Magic Roses" (1906) from the list, because according to the collection Georges Méliès: Encore, it's a Segundo de Chomon film previously misattributed to Méliès.--Lemuellio (talk) 21:44, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation and all of your hard work! You made a few other edits that I would like to ask about:

• What was the basis for your decision to move The Devil's Castle from the (1896-1897) section into the (1896) section? I don't disagree with this since (as noted above) this page [6] does mention an 1896 release, and whether it is a reliable source by Wikipedia's standards or not, the information is most likely true. For the sake of simplicity, I chose to follow the dating system used by filmjournal.net [7] throughout the entire article instead, but I probably should have gone ahead and made an exception for this situation. I'm simply curious whether your evidence for the release date was also the steve-calvert website or if it was another source.

• Why did you choose to alter a few of the film titles? It seems that most of Méliès' films are known by several names, so unless a certain variation was used by a specific source, I don't see why one would be any better than another. I assume that you may have been using the titles by which they are listed as in the Flicker Alley DVD compiliation (which I would support), but am hoping for confirmation. The specific films were The Prolific Magical Egg (formerly listed as Prolific Magical Egg), Eruption of Mt. Pele (formerly listed as The Eruption of Mount Pelee), The Christmas Angel (formerly listed as Distress and Charity), and The Mysterious Island (formerly listed as Ulysses and the Giant Polyphemus). I'm particularly confused about The Christmas Angel, as there are now two seperate entries for that title in the list, each under a different year and with a different French title. Did Méliès really make two films by this title or is one of these entries a double?

• Why did you add the word "Pathé" in the Star Films Catalogue # column for The Diabolical Church Window?

Also, does the Flicker Alley DVD collection make any mention of the Star Films Catalogue? --Jpcase (talk) 22:40, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the interest! The source for all my edits up to now (save the Robinson Crusoe news, of course) was Flicker Alley's Encore! collection, which lists the release year, original French and English release titles, and Star Film number for each film it includes. I have found its scholarship to be of excellent quality and am confident it can be relied upon, unless some even more academic source (say, John Frazer's Artificially Arranged Scenes) contradicts it. At present, if an entry includes a reference in the "Status" bar, it means I've verified the year, Star Film number, and English-language title (about which more below). Thus:

• I moved The Haunted Castle (a.k.a. The Devil's Castle) to 1896, on the evidence of Flicker Alley's scholarship. I'm guessing the 1896-1897 date floating around the internet comes from confusion with this film, the same title but was made in 1897.
• Méliès, who worked in London for some time, gave each of his films an official English title along with the French one - sometimes the one is a literal translation of the other, but sometimes (as with The Christmas Angel) it's completely different. These titles are given in the British and American versions of the Star Film catalogues, which (despite what another user said above) really did exist in Méliès's lifetime (see here, here, and here), and are used by Shepard and his cohorts in the Flicker Alley release. One of IMDb's most interesting quirks is that the "title" they give for a Méliès film is sometimes the English, sometimes the French, sometimes a translation of one or the other, sometimes a competitor's title for a bootleg copy, and sometimes a mistake. :) And yes, sometimes Méliès used the same name twice (see The Haunted Castle above, as well as the two films called Extraordinary Illusions).
• At the end of his film career, Méliès had to disband the Star Film Company and work for the film company Pathé. Thus, a significant handful of 1911–1912 films have no Star Film numbers and can simply be labelled "Pathé," as Flicker Alley does in its collections.

I hope that makes everything clear, but if not, don't hesitate to ask! Very glad to be of help.--Lemuellio (talk) 00:02, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and two other quick notes:

• Since No.82 is listed by Flicker Alley as having been released 1896, I think we can safely say that No.81 was also released that year. So, I've dispensed with the "1896–97" category entirely.
• Regarding verifying titles: I'm not absolutely sure what Méliès intended as far as capitalization, but the Flicker Alley sets follow the standard French practice of capitalizing the first noun, any proper nouns, and nothing else. This seems sensible, so I've gone with it.--Lemuellio (talk) 01:35, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm thrilled that you have a source for the Star Films Catalogue. I spent many long, monotonous hours working that order into the article and was worried that it might be removed one day for lack of a proper reference. If any of your sources contain a description of what the SFC actually is, then I think that it would be a good idea to explain that in the lead. The same goes for Pathé and Urban.

I'm satisfied with all of your answers to my questions, though I did notice that this page [8] doesn't actually contain the SFC # for Robinson Crusoe, which causes a slight problem in your plan to source each entire row in the status column. This could be solved easily enough if you have sources for the films not included in any DVD compiliation (and of course, even more importantly, this would allow all of the lost films to be sourced), but it seems that you may not; am I right?

Your approach on the capitalization of the French titles sounds like the best method and I have no objections against moving titles into definitive years when they are bookended by films with sourced release dates; however I'm not sure why you moved The Mysterious Cabinet (SFC # 387-389) out of the (1901-1902) section and into the (1901) section.

Out of all of your work though, these are my only two concerns. I'm very impressed with how thorough you've been and appreciate the notes that you've left when anything has been unclear. Regarding How Bridget's Lover Escaped though, what basis would there be for using Le mariage de Victorine as the French title, instead of Flicker Alley's Le mariage de Victoire? --Jpcase (talk) 16:47, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't have a good source on hand about the SFC(s) at the moment, but if I remember correctly, John Frazer's book Artificially Arranged Scenes: the Films of Georges Méliès explains the situation pretty well. I'll try to get my hands on a copy in the next few weeks - it's a rare but very thorough book.

As for the Robinson Crusoe entry: Flicker Alley's Encore disc includes a fragment of Crusoe (all that was known to exist at the time), so I got the SFC number from that, but obviously the news that the whole film has survived came from the Guardian article. I'm not sure how to document this in terms of footnotes, and agree that the current system may not be flexible enough; I'd appreciate any feedback or ideas you might have.

Frazer's book is scholarly and long enough that it may (fingers crossed) include a complete list of every Méliès film, including release dates and SFC numbers and status. It's been a few years since I've seen a copy, so I haven't been able to check. If so, this would indeed solve some problems, especially for sourcing lost films. However, some of Méliès's surviving films were presumed lost when Frazer published the book, so even if Frazer includes a full filmography, the DVD collections would be useful as evidence that some films have been recovered.

Thanks for catching my Mysterious Cabinet mistake; I'll put it to rights. And you're quite right about Victoire - unless another source gives evidence to the contrary, let's assume "Victorine" was a typo.

Finally, a big thanks for your detailed feedback and questions. It's a pleasure working with you on this page.--Lemuellio (talk) 19:34, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

PS.--By the way, I've just come across "Excursion to the Moon" (unnumbered, 1908). The Encore set identifies this title as another Segundo de Chomon misidentification like "Magic Roses," so I've had to remove it. Of course, we could add a "Previously attributed to Georges Méliès" section to the page if we so desired.--Lemuellio (talk) 19:53, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Really, what you've done with this article has made my entire week. :) After throwing in the towel a while ago, I had pretty much given up hope for the article and was shocked when I saw your edits in my watchlist. I wish that I could be of greater help to you, but only have a little time that I can devote to this right now and probably couldn't do much anyway since I don't have access to your sources. Still, I'll be keeping close tabs on the page and will continue to share any thoughts that I might have.

Unless I'm misunderstanding the article on Robinson Crusoe, the copy that was recently found is still actually missing two-and-a-half minutes. So it might be best to use the Flicker Alley DVD as the reference instead and change the film's status to "Fragment". Although, if you want to take the time, it would certainly be worth creating an individual article on the film, where the Guardian reference could be used to provide a more detailed description of its status.

Creating a section on films misattributed to Méliès actually sounds like a really good idea. I'm also wondering whether it would be possible to make each section of the list accessible through the Table of Contents, since each year is so extensive; however I have no idea how, or even if this could be done. Regarding your revised note for How Bridget's Lover Escaped, which online sources have you seen using Victorine?

It would be great if Frazer's book contains more in depth information on the SFC and Méliès' lost films. Keep me updated on whether you are able to get ahold of a copy. --Jpcase (talk) 00:01, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

(I got a WP:Notification this morning, that a page I had created, Tunnelling the English Channel, had been linked from this article. I came here, and saw the discussion on the talkpage, and was pleased to no end by the smart and productive discourse that was unfolding. Kudos and smiles to you both :) –Quiddity (talk) 00:23, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Jpcase and Quiddity: kudos and smiles to you both as well! It's great to know one's work is being appreciated. I've just finished going through the DVD collections and am waiting to see what Frazer's like, so it'll probably be a few weeks before I can add much else to the page, but I'll be at the ready.

Excellent idea with Crusoe, Jpcase. I've started an article and will resource the listing here. I'll experiment with the table of contents, but the only foolproof way I know of to link the list through the ToC would be to split it up into multiple Wikitables, one per year.

My info on Victoire/Victorine comes from Google searches: IMDb gives Victorine rather than Victoire, but intriguingly, some books in Snippet View appear to give both titles. We'll see if any info turns up. I'll keep you posted!--Lemuellio (talk) 14:14, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Update: the one way I've found to link the ToC within a table is to include headers within it, as shown below. I'm not sure I like this look and might suggest we simply split the table up, but I'd be glad to hear your thoughts.--Lemuellio (talk) 15:00, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

#	English title(s)	French title	Status	Notes
1896
1	Playing Cards	Une Partie de cartes	Survives	Méliès' first film
2	Conjuring	Séance de prestidigitation	etc.

Oh! Not only can I appreciate your work, I can possibly even assist!

Use {{anchor}} tags within the table:

[[1896 in film|1896]] {{anchor|1896}}

The ToC is a bit more complicated, but we can wrestle Template:TOC_2D into doing the job. Would you prefer all the entries on one-line, or one-per-line? (The latter would get very long, but you might want images or an infobox at the top-right, eventually?

I've put a one-line example on the article, but it can be customized easily enough. Does that look ok to you both?

{{ping}} me if there are any drastic problems, or help is needed in the far future (but I'll be watchlisting for now).

Otherwise, splitting the table into sections, with standard headers, and a {{See also|1896 in film}} underneath each header (because links in headers are discouraged), would be the best alternative. –Quiddity (talk) 17:20, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I think that works well. Personally, I would prefer one-per-line, but if Lemuellio feels otherwise, we can keep it as it is.

The Robinson Crusoe article looks great. I assume that most of Méliès' surviving films (and perhaps some of the lost ones as well) are notable enough for standalone articles. I know that creating these would be a lengthy task though, so don't feel pressured to take it on.

I've noticed that there are still a few unreferenced films with a "Survives" status and assume that this means they weren't included in either of your DVD sets. Let me know if they were and you simply skipped over these ones by accident, but otherwise I've managed to find refs for several of them and will see if I can find anything for the others a little later. --Jpcase (talk) 23:02, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Quiddity, this is marvelous. A hearty thanks for implementing section anchors and making them work! I'd lean slightly in favor of a one-line arrangement simply because the one-per-line setup is rather long, as our French colleagues have demonstrated on their equivalent of this page, but it's not a big deal to me. (I doubt the page is suitable for an infobox, at any rate, so a small one-line box would probably end up being most aesthetically pleasing.) Building on Quiddity's work, I've been experimenting with an even more compact adaptation, but the original is still hidden in the wikicode if we want to revert.

I've just finished rechecking the DVD listings and can confirm that all films from those collections have been sourced; the other "Survives" labels predate me. Many thanks for taking the lead with Pygmalion, Jpcase - please do source others if you're willing and able!--Lemuellio (talk) 00:57, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

All of them should be sourced now. Sorry for being rather slow in going about this; as I said above, I don't have much time that I can spend on this right now. Though I'm more than glad to help out when I get the chance! I haven't personally seen the StudioCanal DVD, but according to the comment by Dave Hartley on this page, [9] Summoning the Spirits, The Human Pyramid and The Artist and the Mannikin are all included in the set. This page, [10] while probably not an acceptable source for Wikipedia, verifies that the films have indeed survived. I'm willing to take Hartley's word for it that the StudioCanal DVD has these films, but we can remove it if either of you feel that we should only use a source that at least one of us has actually seen for ourself. --Jpcase (talk) 15:45, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Good catch! There's what appears to be a complete listing of the StudioCanal films here, so I've been able to add a couple more. Well done!--Lemuellio (talk) 20:30, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for looking further into that. The article is really coming a long way! --Jpcase (talk) 20:59, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Just FYI, I've finally gotten my hands on some Méliès books and have found not one but two complete filmographies. I'm about to begin a thorough checking process based on these sources; this will take several edits, so I beg your patience.--Lemuellio (talk) 14:10, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Good job so far. Your diligence in editing this article continues to amaze me! Here are a few minor points that I am confused about.

• Your note for A Little Rascal (SFC # 12) reads, "'Rascal' per Frazer. Frazer has "Devil", probably from literal translation of the French title". It seems to me that you might have meant to write Hammond (or someone else's name) instead of Frazer twice. Am I right?

• Why did you put [sic] after A Lightning Sketch (Von Bismark) (SFC # 73)?

• You changed the release dates for several films that have been sourced with the First Wizard of Cinema DVD. I understand why you did this for A Nightmare (SFC # 82) and The Temptation of Saint Anthony (SFC # 169), since they are bookended by films now sourced with Frazer's book, but does this mean that First Wizard of Cinema does not contain release date information? Also, The Man with the Rubber Head (SFC # 382-383), The Devil and the Statue (SFC # 384-385), and The Dwarf and the Giant (SFC # 386) still have unreferenced films on either side of them, so why did you move these from 1901 to 1902? --Jpcase (talk) 02:53, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! Let me see if I can clarify.

• Yes, it's Hammond who says "A Little Devil." I'll fix the comment. Thanks for catching this.
• As far as I can tell, "Von Bismark" probably refers to Otto von Bismarck. I added the [sic] to clarify that the variant spelling is a correct transcription from the filmographies, rather than an error Wikipedia can be blamed for. That said, the [sic] might well be overly fussy or presumptuous on the page; I'm fine with removing it.
• Hammond and Frazer divide their filmographies into years, with Hammond even providing specific months of release whenever possible. Their release dates agree in every instance. Therefore, in the absence of further evidence, I've had to conclude that some of the release dates given by Flicker Alley are typos.

And just to clarify: with the exception of the Paris Exposition and Dreyfus Affair cycles (which I'll have to verify later), none of the films from 1896 through 1905 are now unreferenced; all have been SFC-numbered and title-corrected based on the filmographies. There are some things about Hammond and Frazer that still confuse me (e.g., why they disagree with Flicker Alley so often), but for the time being they're the most complete and most academic sources I have on hand, so I've gone ahead and used them.

Again, many thanks for your patience, proofreading, and continued support! I hope to finish the 1906 list and tackle some of the later years today. Please let me know if you have any other questions.--Lemuellio (talk) 15:24, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. You're probably right that Von Bismark refers to Otto Von Bismarck, so I would actually suggest keeping the [sic]. I'm confused about the purpose of the 20th reference though (currently being used for the French titles of The Misfortunes of an Explorer (SFC # 244), Off to Bloomingdale Asylum (SFC # 359), and A Roadside Inn (SFC # 844-845). Is this supposed to be a footnote? I did notice just one film that you seem to have skipped over - The Snow Man (SFC # 225)

It's disappointing that there are so many discrepancies between Flicker Alley, Hammond, and Frazer, but I admire your ability to navigate through and synthesize all of the conflicting information. Despite its apparent mistakes, I don't have any issue with continuing to use Flicker Alley as a reference (even Frazer and Hammond don't seem to be perfect); however it might be best to only use it and StudioCanal as references for films that had not yet been discovered to survive at the time of Artificially Arranged Scenes' publication. It would be simpler to just use one reference whenever possible and Frazer's book seems to be the most reputable. --Jpcase (talk) 18:07, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Since reference 20 simply names an information source (rather than supplying new information), it strikes me as more appropriately listed in References than in Footnotes. That said, go ahead and change it if you feel strongly about it.

Your simplified-reference system is highly tantalizing, and would certainly make for a simpler page. (I take it you're referring specifically to the references in the "Status" column?) My one slight concern is that such a system might strike readers as less dependable: a film's survival as of 1979 isn't necessarily proof of its survival as of 2013 (nitrate film is known to burn/explode/decompose quickly, after all), whereas availability of the film on DVD is a more concrete guarantee that the film is viewable. But, as I say, it's a highly tempting system. While we're on the subject, do you think it's valuable to specify page numbers for Frazer's "Lost" notices (as I've been doing so far), or is that unnecessary because all unreferenced information can be assumed to come from Hammond/Frazer already? I'd appreciate any thoughts.--Lemuellio (talk) 23:58, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Reference 20 (and now Reference 33 as well) looks somewhat out of place to me, since it contains an explanation of which specific information it is being used to source, while the other references merely list the author, date, and (if applicable) page number. Upon further consideration though, I see that you are right; it shouldn't be a footnote. However, I've noticed that in other instances in which the subtitle has come from a single source (such as The Drawing Lesson, or the Living Statue (SFC # 470-471), The Apparition, or Mr. Jones' Comical Experience With a Ghost (SFC # 501-502), Jupiter's Thunderbolts, or the Home of the Muses (SFC # 503-505), etc.) you have left an invisible comment rather than a citation, and personally, I think that this method works best. Is there a reason why you've chosen two different approaches?

As for simplifying the references, yes, I'm only referring to the ones in the "Status" column. You make a good point regarding the possibility that some of the films could have become lost since 1979, so if you feel that the best system would be to use the DVD releases as references for the surviving films, then I certainly wouldn't oppose the decision. However, none of the films that had been classified as surviving by Frazer actually have been lost since, have they? While I don't actually know much about the process of film preservation myself, I would assume that anything that could be done to ensure the survival of something so significant as the works of Méliès would have been undertaken as soon as possible. If serious film historians had acquired any one of these films, the idea that they would have let anything happen to it seems improbable to me. Perhaps though, I am overestimating how much control they would have over the situation. To your final question - Although removing references for the "Lost" statuses seemed like a bad idea to me at first, the more I think about it, the more I think that it might be worth doing. Let me know if you want to go ahead with this and I'll try to pitch in a bit. --Jpcase (talk) 20:01, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Very good point regarding the inconsistency between footnotes and invisible comments - my footnotes for Justinian's Human Torches and The Broken Violin are similarly inconsistent. Yes, invisible comments are probably cleaner and simpler; go ahead and change the notes however you'd like. And your argument regarding film survival sounds reasonable to me; I can go back and change the refs accordingly. We're already using Frazer for Crying and Laughing, The Enchanted Basket, and Beelzebub's Daughters, so it makes sense to use him for others. As for removing "Lost" references, perhaps it would be best to wait until after the entire list has been checked against Hammond/Frazer; that way it's a little more obvious what info comes from where.

That said, as I continue to verify (and especially after the edits I've just made to the 1908 section), it becomes clearer and clearer that Flicker Alley was working from more recent scholarship than I am. Several films that are unnumbered in Frazer and Hammond get SFC numbers in the Flicker Alley sets; other cases are more complicated, as the cornucopia of invisible comments I've had to leave behind suggests. Because of these problems, it's getting less and less easy to use Frazer and Hammond as a main source. So, I'll continue to glean whatever information I can from those two more-than-thirty-year-old books, but here's hoping a better, more recent complete filmography shows up sometime soon. I'll do some outside research as to what that might be, and where to look.--Lemuellio (talk) 21:28, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Update: I've finished going through Frazer and Hammond's filmographies, so the reference-weeding-out process described above can begin.

Interestingly, I ran across a small handful of films that had been on this page but which Hammond and Frazer don't mention. I've no idea whether they were misattributed, or variant titles for other films, or new films that were undiscovered when Frazer and Hammond were writing in the 70s, but here they are:

• Fantasmagorical Illusions/Illusions fantasmagoriques (1903)
• Extraordinary Adventures (1903; possibly a typo for "Extraordinary Illusions")
• Egyptian Fantasy/Fantaisie Égyptienne (1903)
• À president-elect Roosevelt (1906)
• Le chevalier démontable (1906)
• La galerie sens dessus-dessous (1906, possibly "A Mix-up in the Gallery")
• Le délirium tremens (1907)
• The Story of Eggs (1907)
• L'acteur en retard (1908, possibly "Why That Actor was Late")
• At the Hotel Mix-Up (1908)
• Fin de réveillon (1910)
• The Prisoner's Story (1912)

And here are some that were misattributed in the article to Georges but (per Hammond 149–151) all actually directed by his brother Gaston Méliès between 1910 and 1912. If we can find a source to prove that somebody, somewhere along the line, attributed these films to Georges, it would be fun to move these films into the "Misattributed" section:

• The Ranchman's Debt of Honor
• Mexican as It Is Spoken
• Right or Wrong
• Tommy's Rocking Horse
• The Stolen Grey
• The Mission Waif
• The Ghost of Sulphur Mountain

And, finally, here's one film Hammond lists but Frazer does not. I have no idea whether it exists and Frazer skipped it by accident, or whether it's a misattributed film.

• Le Traitment 706 a.k.a. Guérison de l'obésité en 5 minutes (1910)

Here's hoping that other sources turn up to shed light on these mysteries.--Lemuellio (talk) 21:02, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm far from the scholar that you are, but I've done a brief online search and can confirm that IMDB credits all of the above films, from Fantasmagorical Illusions to Fin de réveillon, as well as Le Traitment 706 a.k.a. Guérison de l'obésité en 5 minutes, to Georges Méliès; although this doesn't really mean anything, since IMDB isn't exactly the most reliable source. (By the way, we should remove the statement about IMDB crediting 555 films to Méliès from the article. Do Frazer or Hammond specify the total number of films included in their filmographies?) As for The Prisoner's Story, IMDB lists both Gaston and Georges as the directors [11]. In fact, the website lists the two of them as co-directors for all of the above films that Hammond has credited to Gaston. While IMDB certainly isn't the best source, it still tends to be accurate most of the time, so I think that we ought to at least consider the possibility of this information being true. Does Hammond include an entire filmography for Gaston, and if so, are you sure that The Prisoner's Story wasn't included? Also, is anything said about Georges ever serving as a co-director with his brother?

Fantasmagorical Illusions is given by IMDB as an alternative title for The Famous Box Trick, which would make sense, seeing as though they share the same French title. Apparently, its French release was in 1898 and its US release was in 1903, [12] which would explain the discrepancy in years. À president-elect Roosevelt and Le chevalier démontable are listed as 1905 films on IMDB, but this was probably just a mistake on the part of the editor who added the films to this article. I don't have any familiarity with films101.com, but this page [13] also credits Roosevelt to Georges Méliès and even says that the film was selected as "notable" by the American Film Institute Desk Reference. A link is then provided to a book by that title, which I've just placed an order on; hopefully it will contain some useful information. Le chevalier démontable is listed in an incomplete filmography of Georges Méliès in the book Los grandes directores de cine (Google Books preview [14]) and At the Hotel Mix-Up is credited to Georges Méliès in these copyright catalogues [15] [16]. I've noticed though, that you didn't actually remove At the Hotel Mix-Up from this article and in fact, referenced it with Frazer's book. Was this simply an oversight or did you not mean to include the title in the above list?

If you're starting to think that Flicker Alley is the most accurate source, then what do you think should be done in the cases that we discussed above, in which Flicker Alley's release dates disagree with those of Frazer and Hammond? You mentioned that Hammond provides specific months of release in some cases, which would certainly lead me to believe that his information is correct. Does he do this for the films in question?

Also, we still need to add a reference for "1st Horror Film" in the notes column of The Haunted Castle. Do Frazer or Hammond say anything about this? If not, then we could perhaps use The Overlook Encyclopedia: Horror, which is currently being used to source the information in the film's own Wikipedia article. Unfortunately though, no specific page number is provided and Google Books doesn't have a free preview. I'm not even sure whether Google Books information on it (see here - [17]) is accurate, as the synopsis is for a different volume in the series. --Jpcase (talk) 18:10, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Marvelous research! Thanks for putting in the time and doing this.

According to Frazer (pp.46–51), Gaston Méliès moved to New York in 1903 to open an American branch of Star Films. He moved to Chicago in 1908, San Antonio in 1909, and Ventura County in 1911, and made additional films on a Pacific sea voyage through 1913. All this time, Georges was making films in Paris, so though he may have been a co-producer in a sense, the probability seems virtually nil that he actually supervised the making of any of Gaston's films. The Prisoner's Story isn't included in Hammond's supposedly complete Gaston filmography, but I'm glad you asked me to double-check, because I found that Roosevelt is! It's a 1905 clip of Roosevelt and some political colleagues; Gaston must have popped down to Washington DC to film it. If time permits me I'll try to start a filmography on Gaston's WP page.

Thanks for catching At the Hotel Mix-Up--that was my oversight. It is indeed listed in Frazer.

My guess is that Flicker Alley's work is based on a more recent, more accurate filmography--possibly the one in this book. Of course, some errors may have slipped in. For now, as far as release dates go, I'd suggest we follow Frazer and Hammond up until 1908, when their lists suddenly get fragmentary (much less information, fewer SFC numbers provided, and—you were right—no release months for the films currently in doubt). From that year on, my guess is that Flicker Alley is probably more reliable, since it provides additional SFC numbers and titles.

The Haunted Castle was assumed lost until 1988, so Hammond and Frazer aren't able to say much about it. Frazer ignores it entirely; Hammond (p.30), working from a summary in one of the Star Films catalogues, calls it "the first vampire film ever made," though only because it includes a bat turning into Mephistopheles. The more I think about it, the less I'm convinced we need to keep the "1st Horror Film" note, since even that descriptor seems a little dubious; as the WP article points out (apparently using the same Overlook book as its source), the film certainly doesn't seem intended to frighten. Any thoughts?--Lemuellio (talk) 15:49, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Great job removing the unnecessary references so quickly! Sorry I didn't help out with that; I had intended to, but seeing as though you changed the status for some films and revised some of the notes, it's probably best that you had a chance to go through it all again yourself. I did go ahead and remove the sentence about IMDB though. Again, do Frazer or Hammond provide a total film count? I think that this information would be good to include using a better reference, and while I'm willing to count the films myself, it would be nice if one of them has already done it.

Two more things that I've been wondering about - First, why have you added references directly after the Star Film Catalogue number and/or French title for some films? Hasn't your method been to source everything in the "Status" column? Even if Frazer could be used to source a film's status, I think that it would be best to just use an alternative reference for the entire row, rather than use multiple references for a single film. Secondly, do Frazer or Hammond explain why some of the films have no Star Film Catalogue number, French title, or English title? I know that in some cases these are simply unknown, and that some films were not given a number in the SFC since they were released by Urban or Pathé, but what about the instances in which you have written "No catalogue number", "No French title", or "No English title".

I'm not really sure what we should do about the note for The Haunted Castle. Even though it may not be a horror film in the most common sense, it is (assuming that the claim is accurate) the first film to include several elements that have become characteristic of the genre. That seems pretty notable to me; although it may not be something that has to be mentioned here, seeing as though the film has its own article for providing more in depth information. If we choose to remove it, then I have to wonder whether we should even have the "Notes" column at all. "Méliès' first film" certainly isn't necessary for Playing Cards, so the only real purpose that the column serves is to designate which films belong to the Dreyfus Affair cycle (which is already pretty obvious) and which belong to the Paris Exposition cycle. Of course, we still have to decide whether to follow Frazer and Hammond in listing these as single films or not. Since none of the Paris Exposition films were included in any of the DVD sets, there doesn't actually seem to be a reference that could be used to list them as multiple films, other than filmjournal.net (the reference that I had used before you got involved with the article), which I believe is just a blog. So I would suggest that we combine those into a single entry, unless something else ever turns up. As for the Dreyfus Affair, I've noticed that in the film's article, you used Frazer's book to source a statement about the installments being sold individually. I can't tell then, whether this means that the cycle was shown as one film in its initial screening and then split into multiple parts at some later time or if they were always intended as multiple films and Frazer just grouped them together under one name in his filmography since they were part of a series. Does his book have any further information on this that might be useful? One possibility would be to list them as one film, while providing a footnote that could mention the titles of each installment. --Jpcase (talk) 16:51, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Considering the variety of topics that we've covered in our discussion, it might be best to retitle this section, as recommended by WP:TPO. I'm thinking that "Referencing" might be the most descriptive title, but let me know if you have a better idea. --Jpcase (talk) 19:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I overlooked the film count question! Hammond estimates 500 films; Frazer counts 498. Of course, at least one film seems to have escaped their notice (L'agent gelé, 1908), and others are still dubious, so I don't know how accurate the count is.

Thanks for asking about the "Status" column sourcing - I should have clarified earlier. At present (with the obvious exceptions of the "Notes" column and the two multifilm cycles), every cell in the table has been verified using Hammond and Frazer. When another source was used to add in an extra bit of information (a title, a survival status, a number), I've tried to credit it in the cell it appertains to. I'm inclined to think this method is the clearest and most transparent way of referencing, especially given the notice in the lead paragraph: "Unless otherwise referenced, the information presented here is derived from the filmographies prepared by Paul Hammond and John Frazer." While it's very true that consolidating other refs in the "Status" column would look much cleaner, it would make it considerably more ambiguous where each piece of information comes from.

"No catalogue number" was my way of noting that the films were not included in the SFC; I'll try to dig through the books and find an explanation for these cases. And so far, I haven't found a reason why some films only have a title in one language. I suspect that some were aimed entirely at American (or French) markets and therefore didn't need to be bilingual; in other cases, I'm guessing that Méliès prepared bilingual titles but Hammond and Frazer were only able to locate one of the two.

I couldn't agree more that the Notes column has become unnecessary. And for the time being, given the materials at hand, it does seem to be best to list Dreyfus and Paris each as a single film; I'll go ahead and change it. (Frazer claims the Dreyfus installments were sold separately from Day One, so to speak, but considers the work a cohesive film. For the Dreyfus WP article, I cobbled together a list of French and English titles from Frazer and another book, but I can't tell if they're the actual titles or just scholarly reconstructions; here's hoping more info becomes available.) As always, thanks for your excellent questions, and for catching so many of my trip-ups and inconsistencies!--Lemuellio (talk) 21:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the article right now, I'm amazed to see how far it has come in less than a month. Thank you for sticking with this Lemuellio, and taking the extra time to discuss everything with me. I hope you realize how much your work has been appreciated. Your explanation about referencing individual cells makes perfect sense, so I only have a few more quick questions, and then I believe that the filmography itself will be complete.

Is there a reason why you decided not to include a footnote for The Dreyfus Affair, giving the titles of the individual installments? Even if there is chance that they are only "scholarly reconstructions", I still think that it would be worth noting they have been used by Frazer. Also, is "Survives" the accurate status for this film and Paris Exposition? Previously, the "Status" column had been empty for the final two installments of The Dreyfus Affair and the entire Paris Exposition cycle, but perhaps this is just because you skipped over them?

As for the films with titles in only one language, you say that one possibility is that Hammond and Frazer might have been unable to locate the French or English title for some of these, but would there be any difference then, between films designated with "No French title"/"No English title' and those designated with "Unknown title"? (The latter is currently being used for SFC # 280). That some of the films might have originally been released in only one country seems a likely explanation to me, but when Hammond or Frazer list a film's release date, neither of them ever specify which country it pertains to, do they?

I had been planning on suggesting that the lead be expanded, so I'm glad that you had the same idea and have already started. If we ever manage to figure out why some films weren't included in the Star Films Catalogue or only have a title in one language, this would be good information to mention there. I think that it would also be helpful to explain why some of Méliès' films were released by Urban and Pathé, instead of his own studio. These seem to me like the most important things to discuss in the lead, but if you want to go above and beyond, you might want to write a brief overview of how Méliès first got into filmmaking and started the Star Film Company, then trace through the phases of his career, while highlighting some of his most notable films (something could be said about The Haunted Castle here if we want; The Dreyfus Affair and The Paris Exposition may be worth mentioning; A Trip to the Moon certainly would be). In fact, you could even expand the already-existing sentence about the various genres that he worked in, so as to give examples of specific films from each one and how some of them might have proved to be influential. Other topics could include Méliès critical and financial success (this could be its own paragraph, or if it fluctuated, you could intersperse it throughout the paragraph detailing his career), the opinion of current scholars on his body of work, discoveries of and restoration efforts for his films, and DVD releases. Of course, all of these are just ideas and none of them are necessary. It all depends on how much you want to do. The article as it is currently written serves its basic purpose perfectly well, but if you choose to continue working on the lead, you may eventually be able to nominate the article as a Featured List. --Jpcase (talk) 21:31, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I'll be out of town for the next several days, but will check in on what you've been doing when I get back. --Jpcase (talk) 03:10, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

These are all excellent suggestions! The ideas for augmenting the lead sound great. Since The Dreyfus Affair has an article listing the individual segments, I don't think we need a footnote duplicating that function, but I can certainly add one in mentioning that the film was released in installments. And yes - according to Frazer, all of Dreyfus and Paris survive (in private collections, if I remember correctly).

It looks like I won't be able to make much time for editing in the next few weeks, but I'll do what I can. I'll have to get back to you about the titling details, but I think I've tracked down another book that may explain the problem; if I can get my hands on a copy I'll let you know.--Lemuellio (talk) 15:51, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

References

Re-referencing?

Jpcase, Quiddity, and any other readers of this page, I'd be much obliged for your advice. I've finally gotten my hands on a modern book of Méliès scholarship (L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès by Jacques Malthête and Laurent Mannoni, 2008), and it's a revelation. It turns out that Jacques Malthête has been publishing revised Méliès filmographies again and again over the last thirty years in various French publications, and this latest version is FULL of information not in Hammond or Frazer, including more titles, more watertight scholarship, and many, many more SFC numbers. This filmography is almost certainly where Flicker Alley and Michael Brooke's unfinished blog at filmjournal.net got their information.

Therefore, it looks to me like the most logical thing to do is to revamp the list on the basis of Malthête and used him as the "Unless otherwise referenced" primary source for the list (demoting Hammond and Frazer to occasional footnotes, since most of their research is superseded by Malthête). This will be a large revision, so I'd just like to make sure it seems logical to other users before I dive in. Thoughts?--Lemuellio (talk) 18:31, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not at all well-informed on the topic, so cannot advise usefully. (Unrelatedly, I will note that the user-mention feature only works if: the username link, and a 4-tilde signature, appear in the same edit! Therefore, I'll re-ping Jpcase for you, here. :) –Quiddity (talk) 20:06, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I can't claim to know all that much about Méliès myself; my interest in this article stemmed from having come here in the hopes of learning more about him, only to be disappointed with how incomplete it was at the time. I can't imagine any reason why we wouldn't want to use Malthête's scholarship though, as long as it's reliable. Seems like a great find!

Oh, by the way; the American Film Institute: Desk Reference arrived and I haven't been able to find any mention of À president-elect Roosevelt in it, so unless I skipped over something, the films101.com page probably made a mistake. --Jpcase (talk) 03:02, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good—will do, and thank you both!

Sorry to hear about the AFI Desk Reference disappointment, but it was very good of you to check. I did a GoogleBooks search a few days ago for that book, and could only find snippet view, but there seemed to be something about Roosevelt on a table of some sort on page ii. Since it seemed to be a list of notable films, I decided to cite it in passing on the Gaston Méliès article. This may only be a passing mention, though.--Lemuellio (talk) 13:48, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I just took a look at the Google Books preview and strangely, the page numbers don't match up with my version at all. I'm not sure whether Google was working off of a newer publication or if it just entered the page numbers incorrectly, but my book doesn't even have a page ii. I was however, able to find the information on page 23. The table is a list of notable films from 1900 to 1905. --Jpcase (talk) 19:35, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to disappear for so long. I'm still trying to keep up with this article, but haven't had much time lately. Your expansion to the lead is fantastic; more could certainly be added, but I feel that it now covers all of the most important points.

Here are a few questions that I had about your changes. I'll post some more later.

• Shouldn't Mannoni also be credited for the 2008 filmography?

• Should a footnote or an invisible comment be provided when Malthete uses a subtitle that Frazer and Hammond do not? For example, should some specification be made that Smarter Than the Teacher (1st bicycle lesson) is only listed as Smarter Than the Teacher by Frazer and Hammond? This certainly may not be necessary, but I feel that it should at least be discussed.

• There are several other films that you have chosen not to include an alternative title for, even though one seems to be needed. For example Frazer and Hammond list Arrival of a Train at Vincennes Station as The Arrival of a Train at Vincennes Station, Gipsies at Home as Gypsies at Home, and Manoeuvres of the French Army as Maneuvers of the French Army. What was your reason for this? (EDIT: I realize that these might seem like trivial differences, but what I am worried about is consistency. In some instances, you did include footnotes that provide only slight variations in a film's title. For example Panorama from Top of a Moving Train is given as an alternative title for Panorama from Top of Moving Train (SFC # 151) and The Mysterious Portrait is given as an alternative title for A Mysterious Portrait (SFC # 196). You also left invisible comments in some instances that Hammond and/or Frazer had slightly different spelling from Malthete, such as after Sorti sans permission (SFC # 154), Le Rastaquouère Rodriguez y Papaguanas (SFC # 871-873), and L'Alchimiste Parafaragaramus ou la Cornue infernale (SFC # 874-876). --Jpcase (talk) 22:12, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

• You've also removed several invisible comments detailing differences between Hammond and Frazer. Since neither of them are being used as a main source for the article anymore, I understand that it isn't necessary to explain every instance in which they differ from each other. However, instead of removing these invisible comments from the article altogether, wouldn't it be better to keep and revise them, so that they detail the differences between Hammond or Frazer and Malthete?

• Is there a reason why you have chosen not to retitle certain articles so that they conform with Malthete's scholarship? (e.g. Shouldn't Watering the Flowers be moved to Watering the Flowers (comical subject) and Boulevard des Italiens be moved to Boulevard des Italiens (Paris)?

• I find it strange that Malthete disagrees with Hammond and Frazer on release dates so often. Does Malthete explain what research led him to reach these different conclusions and does Hammond provide release months for any of these films?

• Why is "2d" used instead of "2nd" for Place de l'Opéra, 2d view (Paris), The Rescue on the River (2d part) and Beach and Pier at Trouville (2d part)? --Jpcase (talk) 18:50, 12 August 2013 (UTC) (EDIT: Likewise, why is 3d used instead of 3rd for Place de l'Opéra, 3d view (Paris)? --Jpcase (talk) 22:12, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I had intended to add the rest of my notes about this page quite a long time ago, but things just kept on getting in the way, and eventually it fell to the back of my mind. I had written my thoughts down though and still have them, so better late than never I guess. I understand if you don't have the time to revisit this page or have simply moved on to other things. However, I feel that these are all points worth discussing if you get the chance.

• Is there any explanation provided for why a film released in 1897 (and likely towards the beginning of that year, given that it was only the second film that Melies had released in 1897) is titled The Mardi Gras Procession (Paris, 1898)?

• You've treated the French-language subtitles for the films in the Comedian Paulus Singing series as though they should be written in italics (although, since they are a part of a larger title already written in italics, this of course means that they appear in regular-type) instead of quotation marks, as should be done for song titles. Was this a mistake or is this how song titles are supposed to be written in French?

• It is also my understanding that ship names are supposed to be written in italics and while you do this for the French titles of SFC #s 144-145, 146, and 147, you use quotation marks for the English titles. Is this how the English titles of these films were written by Malthete?

• Does Malthete provide any explanation for why Hammond classified Faust and Marguerite (SFC # 138), Damnation of Faust (SFC # 158), and The Impossible Dinner (SFC # 591-592) as surviving, even though they are now considered to be lost?

• SFC # 163 had been listed as Fresh Paint by Hammond and Frazer, but is now listed as West Point. Why didn't you add a footnote giving Fresh Paint as an alternative title?

• I'm not sure that it's necessary to list the number of meters for films with unknown titles. I assume that you were following Malthete in doing this, but do you think that it serves any real purpose?

• Why are references needed for the English titles of The Coronation of Edward VII (Urban), Pharmaceutical Hallucinations (SFC # 1416-1428), The Good Shepherdess and the Evil Princess (SFC # 1429-1441), Whimsical Illusions (SFC # 1508-1512), Baron Munchausen's Dream (SFC # 1536-1547), The Conquest of the Pole (Pathé), Cinderella or the Glass Slipper (Pathé), The Knight of the Snow (Pathé), and The Voyage of the Bourrichon Family (Pathé)? How are these films listed by Malthete?

• For SFC #417-418, I assume that the second English-language title should be followed with (UK) instead of (US). Am I correct?

• You now list Robinson Crusoe (SFC # 430-443) as surviving in its entirety. Has a new discovery been made since 2011?

• You chose to include a footnote after The Barber of Sevilla (SFC # 606-625), explaining that the film is listed as The Barber of Sevilla, or the Useless Precaution by Hammond. However, you added invisible comments after The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and the Moon (SFC # 961-968) and the French titles of The Venetian-Looking Glass (SFC # 699-701), and The Mysterious Island (SFC # 750), explaining that their subtitles come from sources other than Malthete. Since Malthete is being used as the main reference, it seems to me that we ought to stick with the first method and list the latter three films as he did, while providing their longer titles in footnotes. Is there a reason for why you chose not to list them this way?

• A film by the English title No Trifling with Love (SFC # 1142-1145) is included in the 1908 section and a film by this same English title is listed in the Questionably Attributed section. These couldn't be duplicates could they? I assume that they aren't, since they each have a different French title, but since the Questionably Attributed film was released in 1908 as well, I thought that I should check.

• What does Malthete say concerning the statuses of Dancing in a Harem (SFC # 132), The Man With Wheels in His Head (SFC # 315), Painless Dentistry (SFC # 354), and The Wonderful Rose-Tree (SFC # 634-636)?

• I know that Melies made significantly fewer films towards the end of his career, but it seems strange that he wouldn't have made a single one in 1910, which would be the case if all of the questionably attributed films from that year aren't his. Do you know if anything specific occurred in 1910 that could have caused him to take a year-long hiatus from filmmaking? --Jpcase (talk) 22:12, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for being so diligent with these edits! As I hope I've said before, it's good to be working with a constructive critic in this manner. I'll handle the questions one by one, beginning with those from the 29 October post.

• According to the Malthete-Mannoni book, only the former author is responsible for the 2008 filmography, which is a revision of earlier filmographies he had published in other places.

• Smarter Than the Teacher: good point. Malthete himself is a bit inconsistent about subtitles; his filmography includes subtitles for many of the early films, such as this one, but often omits subtitles of later ones, even when they can be found elsewhere in the Malthete-Mannoni book. (That's why, on the WP article for The Impossible Voyage, I had to source the release details from the filmography but source the subtitle from a different page of the same volume.) Faced with this inconsistency, I haven't been 100% confident about which ones to display, how to source them, etc. I'd appreciate your suggestions.

• Gypsies at Home: Hammond, a British author, used British spellings of words like "gipsies/gypsies" even when Méliès spelled them the American way; Frazer, an American, used American spellings even when Méliès favored the British way. Malthete, being French, doesn't favor either US or UK spelling, but simply reprints the spelling Méliès actually used. Therefore, I see no need to mention title variations when it's simply a case of US vs. UK spelling.
  On the other hand, missing/rearranged words or variant spellings of exotic character names like "Parafaragaramus" seem worthy of some sort of acknowledgement; I'm just not sure what kind. (Are footnotes too pedantic? Are invisible comments too invisible?) I think this question hinges on a bigger question: to what extent do we need to acknowledge Hammond/Frazer's variants, since Malthete's list, being a major revision/overhaul of the earlier filmographies, is almost certain to be more accurate? I'm not sure myself; hence the inconsistency in the way I've noted the variants.

• Three-way differences (Hammond-Frazer-Malthête): I understand your point, and I can't remember quite why I thought it was worthwhile to delete all that invisible information. If I had the time, I'd go back and add it back in; feel free to do so if you'd like.

• Watering the Flowers (comical subject): as I understand it, Méliès's early catalogues used parentheses for subtitles and other short descriptive phrases. At a loss for how else to proceed, I went with the highly subjective route of putting these subtitles in the article title only when they seemed to me to add something meaningful to the title. Hence, a simple descriptive phrase like "comical subject" didn't seem to merit a title change to Watering the Flowers, but Miss de Vere seemed like an incomplete, unhelpful title without the explanatory add-on: Miss de Vère (English Jig).

• The Malthete-Mannoni book includes a whole section about discerning the release dates for Méliès's films, complete with a guide showing what season of the year each was released in. Hammond's dates, by contrast, were pieced together from a variety of incomplete sources, and Frazer's dates are merely a copy of Hammond's, so I feel fine with letting those less-thoroughly-researched guesses slip under the carpet.

• 2d, 3d, etc.: these are the spellings Méliès used in his catalogue, so I don't see much need to change them.

• The Mardi Gras Procession (Paris, 1898): this was Méliès's error (or rather, Méliès's catalogue's typesetter's error). Hence the use of the [sic] template, which is also how Malthete deals with the typo.

• Comedian Paulus Singing: According to Malthete, the song titles are italicized in Méliès's catalogues; hence the formatting here.

• Ship names: Yes, that's correct. Again, I simply copied verbatim the formatting quirks as they were described by Malthete.

• The two Fausts and The Impossible Dinner: No, there's no explanation given, unfortunately. Presumably Hammond got them mixed up with other films, but I'd love to have a talk with Malthete some time and find out how he sorted all these little tangles out.

• West Point: Good question; I've no idea. Mea culpa.

• Unknown titles with known lengths: Another great question. The only purpose it serves is to give some indication of how much film we're missing, and therefore how long the unknown film must have been. It would make a lot more sense if we gave length in meters for every film, as Malthete in fact does; even if I had the time to add those in, I'm not sure how much good it would do. Thoughts?

• Malthete doesn't list English titles for those films, which strikes me as a surprising oversight since Coronation definitely got an English release within Melies's lifetime, and the others have been released in the English-speaking world at various times as well. Presumably Malthete couldn't find English titles for them in any catalogue directly published by Melies, and therefore played it safe and left them out. For WP's purposes, however, I'm guessing it's useful to include English titles if the films have been widely released under those titles, even if Melies himself didn't authorize them directly.

I've run out of time, so I'll tackle the rest of the questions later. Thanks again!--Lemuellio (talk) 19:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Questions, continued:

• SFC #417-418: yes, you're correct.

• Robinson Crusoe: Malthete seems to think it survives in his entirety. The Guardian article implies otherwise, but I'm not sure how to go about suggesting that Malthete was apparently incorrect.

• Barber of Sevilla et al: See my earlier comment about footnotes and how I'm not sure what our rule regarding them should be. What's your preference regarding how we display and source them?

• No Trifling with Love: Good catch! They're almost certainly the same film. We should remove it from "Questionably Attributed" and add a footnote saying that Le Nouveau Seigneur… is also known as On ne badine….

• Dancing in a Harem et al: Malthete assumes all four films are lost. The reason I've kept Frazer's speculations is simply that I haven't seen them disproven outright.

• 1910: Malthete provides some reason for there being no films from this year, but I can't remember what it is and don't have the relevant pages at hand right now. When I get access to them I'll add an explanation.

I think that's all for now. Thanks!--Lemuellio (talk) 17:16, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks for tackling all of these questions, and my apologies for not replying sooner. I've gone ahead and changed the second (US) to a (UK) for SFC #417-418 and decided to include invisible comments to clarify that the song titles and ship names are written so as to conform with Melies' formatting.

You make an excellent point about the differences between US and UK spelling and I agree that there's no reason to add alternative titles for these variations. I've noticed though, that Malthete has different spelling for several French titles as well and am wondering why that might be. Perhaps Frazer and Hammond weren't very familiar with the language and simply made several spelling errors? I'm not sure how much French you know (I don't know any), but do you have any guesses as to what was going on here? Some examples:

• SFC #16: Hammond and Frazer had Bateau-Mouches, while Malthete has Bateaux-Mouches.

• SFC #29: Hammond and Frazer had Marseilles, while Malthete has Marseille.

• SFC #154: Hammond and Frazer had Sortie, while Malthete has Sorti.

• SFC #237-240: Hammond and Frazer had Brahmane, while Malthete has Brahmine

• SFC #320-321: Hammond and Frazer had Belzebuth, while Malthete has Belzébuth

• SFC #379-380: Hammond and Frazer had Pariah, while Malthete has paria

• SFC #430-443: Hammond and Frazer had Crusoë, while Malthete has Crusoé

I'm still thinking about how we should approach other differences in film titles and will try to give you my opinion on this soon. I have a couple of questions though. First, am I correct in assuming that the instances in which you have provided an alternative title through a footnote simply denote that one of the sources other than Malthete refers to the film by that title, and doesn’t necessarily mean that the source claims that the film was actually ever released under that title? Secondly, could you provide an example of how Malthete uses a subtitle later in his book that he had not included in his filmography?

As for the other issues:

• Mannoni: If he didn't have a hand in the actual filmography, then do you know what he did contribute to the book? Is there anything in this article that he should be credited for?

• Invisible comments: I've been looking through these and will see if any of them are worth re-adding.

• Article titles: I definitely understand your hesitancy about retitling articles so as to include seemingly insignificant descriptive phrases, but if these are the official titles that the films were originally released under, then I feel that we ought to be consistent in using them. Do Malthete and Mannoni refer to any of these films elsewhere in their book? If so, do they use the films' full titles or shortened versions of them?

• 2d and 3d: If these are the spellings that Melies used, then I agree; we shouldn't change them. But do you know why he used these spellings? I assume that most people who read this article will assume that 2d and 3d are typos, or else just be confused by their use. It would be great to provide an explanatory footnote on this if possible.

• The Mardi Gras Procession (Paris, 1898): If this was just an error in Melies' catalogue, then that means that the film's actual release was under a different title, right? Since this article is supposed to be more than just a transcription of the original Star Films Catalogue, then I think that we should use the film's official title (If Malthete knows what it is - Seeing as though there's already a film titled The Mardi Gras Procession (Paris, 1897) in the catalogue, it isn't clear what the typo is) instead and provide a footnote explaining that an incorrect title was entered in the catalogue.

• The two Fausts and The Impossible Dinner: While it may or may not be necessary to change these films' statuses back to "Unknown", I feel that we should at least go back to providing a footnote explaining that Hammond classifies them as surviving.

• Meters: I'm not sure that it would be necessary to add the number of meters for all of the films, since their SFC numbers already give a close estimate of this. It could be worth adding the exact numbers to each film's own article, but that would certainly be a lengthy task. If you want to keep the exact number of meters for films with unknown titles, then I would suggest providing this information through footnotes instead of just having it next to the title in parentheses.

• Robinson Crusoe: Since the Guardian article was published after Malthete's filmography, I would suggest changing the status back to "Fragment" and adding a footnote explaining that Malthete had classified the film as surviving in its entirety, but that the Guardian article was published more recently and says otherwise. --Jpcase (talk) 17:04, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the initiative and correcting the errors. I don't currently have access to the Malthête-Manonni book, so I'm unable to do much useful work on this page at the moment, but here are what thoughts I have at present.

• French spelling variants: Thank you for collecting these and drawing my attention to them! I'm relatively fluent in French, and in each case Malthête's spellings look more logical to me than Hammond & Frazer's. Since the Hammond and Frazer books were not only written, but also typeset and published, by English speakers, I suppose it's only to be expected that so many errors in the French crept in.

• Release titles and alternative titles: A big part of the dilemma here is that Méliès's films, like those of his contemporaries, didn't really have official "releases" as we think of them today, where the official title of the film can be easily established by consulting the posters, press releases, title cards, etcetera; for most Méliès films, there are no official supplementary sources of that nature. Instead, Méliès's films were simply sold to exhibitors through catalogues, and it was up to the exhibitors to do whatever advertising they saw fit. So the only real authorities we have are:

1. The titles used in the catalogues, which presumably Méliès himself had a hand in, but which we know are subject to misprints.
2. The posters and original title cards when they exist, which for Méliès's films, alas, is hardly ever.
3. The titles used to describe the films in subsequent books, DVD sets, etc. These titles often match the catalogue entries, but there's a lot of margin for fudging and error (e.g. why do Flicker Alley and some other sources refer to The Fiendish Tenant as The Diabolic Tenant? Were they just translating the French title literally?). Thus, these titles are often less authoritative, but some of them have become the most common titles for the films, so we can't disregard them either (e.g. The Diabolic Tenant is much more commonly used than The Fiendish Tenant).

So "released" is a tricky word to pin down when we're talking about Méliès. Sorry I've gone on to such undue length on this detail, but it does affect certain other points, as will become clear below.

• Malthête's subtitles: The book covers some Méliès films in detail, but by no means all of them. When the book covers a film in detail, it sometimes gives a subtitle not mentioned in the filmography; for example, The Impossible Voyage is just plain Voyage à travers l'impossible in the filmography, but it blossoms out to Voyage à travers l'impossible: Invraisemblable équipée d'un groupe de savants de la Société de Géographie incohérente; pièce fantastique nouvelle en 40 tableaux when covered in more detail in the body of the book. I'm afraid I don't know why. If I can get my hands on the book again, I'll try to make note of all the extra subtitles.

• Mannoni: The filmography by Malthête is an appendix to the rest of the book, which was written by Malthête and Mannoni together. For clarity and convenience, I've cited any and all text from the book as "Malthête and Mannoni." At the very least, he can reasonably be credited for the subtitles Malthête omitted from the filmography (see "Malthête's subtitles" above).

• Invisible comments: I've been thinking about these myself. As you noted somewhere above, we're currently using a mishmash of citations and invisible comments to cover all sorts of small details, and our policy on when to use which is highly inconsistent. On reflection, it seems to me that, since invisible comments are seen only by people editing (or, for other mysterious reasons, reading the source text for) the page, we should probably use them only for pedantic trivialities that might come in useful to later editors, like those dubious Hammond/Frazer "typos" that may or may not be typos. Meanwhile, since citations are for citing sources, we can use them to highlight any time that the source for info displayed on the page isn't the Malthête filmography, as well as to note common alternative titles, etcetera. Does that sound logical?

• Article titles: It's a thorny problem, but I think I've covered much of it in "Release titles" and "Malthête's subtitles" above.

• 2d and 3d: Take a look at the current version of the page: I think I've found a solution to this ambiguity.

• The Mardi Gras Procession (Paris, 1898): As you've probably guessed from my "Release titles" comment above, the catalogue title is the only source I know of for this little film. I'm not sure how to resolve this one.

• The two Fausts and The Impossible Dinner: Well said. I'll see what I can do.

• Meters: Good point — counting the SFC numbers is presumably how Malthête knows how much is missing in the first place. For some reason that didn't occur to me.

• Robinson Crusoe: If I remember correctly, Maltête's filmography makes no distinction between films that survive completely and films that survive in fragmentary form. So yes, we probably should cite the Guardian to clarify that a wee bit is still missing. Of course, then the problem becomes a semantic one: how much of a film has to be missing before the film is a fragment? :)

Thanks as always for your enlightening questions and double checking. I think we've got a really healthy-looking page on our hands!--Lemuellio (talk) 02:46, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I've been able to borrow a copy of the Malthête-Mannoni book again, and have been looking into the problem of Malthête's subtitles. As far as I can tell (and without meaning any ill-will toward Malthête, whose research on Méliès is impressive and valuable), we're dealing with a problematic inconsistency in the source material. It turns out, based on the descriptive matter in the non-filmography section of the book, that many of Méliès's films have short descriptive subtitles in the catalogues: #112 is subtitled "Scène comique à bord d'un paquebot," #399–411 is subtitled "Pièce à grand spectacle en 30 tableaux," #1159–1165 is subtitled "Bouffonnerie extravagante," etc., etc. Since the descriptive matter doesn't include entries for all of Méliès's films, I don't know how many films were subtitled in all, but judging from the films the text does include, the percentage is probably relatively high.

I have no idea why Malthête puts some of these subtitles in his filmography while disregarding others. Since his filmography doesn't include those three subtitles noted above, why does it include a handful of very similar subtitles, like "scène comique dans un théâtre" (#114), "very comical" (#117), "farce de modèles" (#167), "scène comique clownesque" (#194–195), etc., etc.?

Again, I mean no ill-will toward Malthête in saying all this; the only problem is that the inconsistency leaves a conscientious WP editor in a bind. There seem to be three choices open:

1. Only include the subtitles listed in Malthête's filmography, even though many others clearly exist.
2. Include as many subtitles as possible by sourcing them from the descriptive matter, even though that probably doesn't give us all of them (since the text doesn't deal with all of Méliès's films).
3. Don't include any subtitles.

I admit I'm leaning slightly toward option 2, but I'd strongly value the opinion of anyone reading this.

On the bright side, though, it makes me very happy that we've gotten to such a sophisticated point in the development of this list that we can seriously discuss such a relatively trivial matter as the proper listing of subtitles. It suggests that the page as a whole is in very good shape!--Lemuellio (talk) 16:55, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

What about the redlinks?

Looking at all the redlinks in this filmography has got me thinking about Méliès's films and how to cover them on Wikipedia.

The General Notability Guideline is that a topic should have "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Very clearly some of Méliès's films are notable by that reckoning. But all of them? That's where I'm unsure. It seems unlikely that significant coverage exists for all 520+ of these films, many of which are lost, or only a minute long, or both.

On the other hand, I tend to think that all of these films deserve some WP coverage (as much information as can be provided for them). For one thing, Méliès truly was an innovator; it's hard to overestimate the scope of his influence on cinema. The question is, what format is suitable for covering the non-notable films?

The Actuality films by Georges Méliès page suggests one possible solution: it covers a bunch of short films that fall easily into the same genre (they're all actuality films). But I'm not sure that solution would work in cases where the genre of the film is unknown or in doubt. Maybe something along the same lines, though?

I'd very much appreciate any ideas, suggestions, or opinions.--Lemuellio (talk) 22:41, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up on this. I don't think there's an easy answer or a categorically correct one. I think there's no choice here but to slog through the sources and see which ones have sufficient coverage to establish notability. And make no mistake, it's going to be a slog; I've been focusing my recent efforts on the early Fox films, for example, and (with a few oddball exceptions) it's safe to assume that the major film magazines of the time – Motion Picture News, Moving Picture World, Photoplay – have something to say about all of them. But even MPW, the earliest of the three, didn't have its first issue until 1907, already past the bulk of Méliès's work. You've got the New York Clipper to search for period material, plus whichever of Méliès's individual pieces attracted enough attention to warrant discussion as a historical artifact in later books and scholarly journals. There are probably other contemporary sources, too, but they're going to be harder to locate.

As if that weren't challenge enough, many of Méliès's film titles are, shall we say, insufficient to identify the work. If I Were King is a 1909 Méliès film, but it's also a 1911 Selig Polyscope film and a 1920 film from Fox Film. Another example: the Star Film list gives a 1908 date for Hypnotist's Revenge, but I can't find many (any?) later sources that quote that year; instead, they mostly claim it's a 1909 film, although it's sometimes listed as 1907 – which is actually the year of release for Hypnotist's Revenge, a Biograph film that I am almost but not completely certain is a different piece of cinema. And, frankly, don't get too comfortable with the precise titles, either: A Hypnotist at Work is referred in more than a few places as The Hypnotist at Work.

So, where does that put things? Well, whatever article you choose to use in that hypnotist's title, Le Magnétiseur is probably notable. It gets mentioned in discussions of cinematic treatments of psychiatry, and the (surprisingly large) early tradition of hypnotism in film. Hypnotist's Revenge gets mentioned in the same sorts of works, but the discussions appear to be far more spare (at least in a cursory survey), and it might not make the cut. Works which have survived, like Good Glue Sticks have better odds for modern discussion. On the other hand, for 1908's Oriental Black Art, I'm literally drawing a blank with any sources outside of comprehensive listings of Méliès's works; if there's not more out there than I can find, this one might even be a candidate for delinking. In the absolute worst case, they're listed here already.

Aaand ... that's all I've got, really. I don't see that there are defined categories to bundle the remaining redlinks, like was done for the actuality films. I think they're on their own, to succeed or fail on the attention that was (and is) paid them. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 03:21, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I've been going through the Thanhouser films and I can safely say that almost all the films will have their own article, but 2-3% will be combined into a larger article. Actualities, tests and other short works are perfect for year by year coverage in larger articles when you can only get a paragraph or less on a particular film. Let's face it - General Notability falls down to multiple reliable sources and the assumption that 500+ words can be dedicated to a subject. Really small one to two paragraph listings, when fully developed, just don't make sense to have separate articles. To provide an example: Documentaries and Minor Subjects of the Thanhouser Film Corporation, holds a few fragments which redirect from the titles. Gone to Coney Island and Booming Business is another type of article, based on the split-reel, allowing me to have redirects to the singular article and deal with each production in a concise format. Just a few ideas. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 06:25, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I am not comfortable with addressing the question in such abstract terms. Is there a specific film which raises concerns of notability ? We have very good reference work on Méliès in French and I shall be happy to help improve coverage of a particular topic if I can. Cheers, — Racconish^📥 09:05, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I think WP:REDYES covers it. If an individual film could have its own article, then redlink it. Doesn't matter if that article is created tomorrow or 5 years from now. It's down to individual editors who think if a certain film is/isn't notable. Worst case is that the redlinks are removed now, but re-added if/when the missing film is created. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 09:16, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Obviously we don't want to leave them all as xxx is a 1901 film by George Melies. End of sort of thing. But I do think it would be good to have an article on as many of his films as possible.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:50, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Similar films can be covered in one article just as the actuality films but we should have separate articles on as many of his films as possible. Removing all redlinks now isn't a good idea. Thanks.--Skr15081997 (talk) 11:45, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I hate to say it, but even the sub-stubs have been useful to me - though we want more than than if at all possible. Too many times have I run across a film bearing the same name that is not listed in the major indexes, databases and such. Though red links are definitely fine for now. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:36, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone for the replies! I guess the redlinks should stay as they are for now. I'm much obliged to all of you.--Lemuellio (talk) 17:32, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

They will be filled in with increasing speed as the Wikiproject gets established and draws more editors. It will take some time, but the silent-era may become one of the best sections on Wikipedia if everyone keeps working hard. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:56, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Coming at this from a film historian's point of view (and full of admiration for all the template and table work that has been put in BTW) I think any film surviving from Méliès is worthy of note especially given how few did make it so far. Therefore a redlink is proper and should any of us get data it can be added. We still dream of a trunk being found in some attic... YellowFratello (talk) 17:57, 25 February 2015 (UTC)