User Reviews

Danse serpentine (1900)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

This is certainly a bizarre little film from French filmmaker Alice Guy. As the film starts off a lion tamer is in a cage with two lions and he's holding a cow, which of course must look like a tasty dish to them. He tries to keep the lions away from the cow with a couple nice tricks. From here, a woman (Mme Ondine) enters the cage and does a dance but what makes the dance so memorable is that it's hand tinted to give it a wonderful look. DANSE SERPENTINE was a very popular thing back in the day so it obviously makes sense trying to film it since you could sell it to audiences. This is certainly a very bizarre little film because you start off with a circus show before jumping into some terrific hand tinted coloring. I thought the coloring was beautiful to look at and the effect of Ondine waiving her hands certainly worked. What also worked was the very fun lion tamer stuff, which managed to have some nice drama.

This film was included in the three DVD set "Saved From the Flames"--a collection of mostly ephemeral movies that have managed to avoid turning to powder, catching fire or melting--something that usually happened with the nitrate film stock used up through the 1950s.

In the late 1890s, Mme. Ondine created a sensation with her so-called 'Serpentine Dance'--and film footage of this is among the most famous of the early films. Because I am a retired history teacher and cinemaniac, I love early films like this--and it will probably be appreciated by a very small minority of viewers, as it isn't a story, just a lady doing a somewhat mesmerizing dance with very long sleeves. What makes this version interesting, however, is that apparently people loved the dance but wanted something different--and it resulted in an ultra-weird little film. First, a lion tamer enters the cage with lions and does his routine. So far, so good. However, after dismissing the lions, in steps Mme. Ondine into the cage and begins a shortened version of her dance! Huh?!? But, historically speaking, it is really interesting and sure surprised me to see such a film was made.

By the way, like surviving copies of "Danse Serpentine", this one has some hand coloring. This tedious task consisted of factories filled with women who hand painted portions of each and every cel--which could run into the thousands. And, if that's not enough to exhaust them, they had to do this for EVERY copy the studio released--and you can see why in some cases there were colored and black & white copies released.