Divers At Work on the Wreck of The "Maine" (1898)
*** (out of 4)
aka Visite sous-marine du Maine
Here's a pretty fun film from director Melies. As the title suggests, a group of divers are working at the bottom of the sea on a ship that hit something and sunk. There's really nothing too special about this film and it works better as something macabre instead of something magical. There's one sequence where one of the diver's bring out a dead woman and have to attach her to a rope and send her to the top of the water. There are countless fish swimming throughout the scene and I guess this is the only special effects that really go on. It would be interesting to know how people took this film back when it was released considering how many ship wrecks there actually were at the time. There's nothing too special here but it makes for a fun minute.