The King and the Jester (1907) User Reviews

Ewww. Bad print....

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 20 September 2011]

The French title for this is "Francois Ier et Triboulet". So apparently the king from the title is Francois I--the famous renaissance king who was Henry VIII's rival and DaVinci's BFF.

This is a five minute short film from Georges Méliès. Like most of his films, Méliès himself appears in the movie--as the jester. He bounces about and tries to entertain the king. However, Francois appears bored by all this. But, when the jester brings out a pretty lady (in 1907 clothing, by the way), the king takes notice! Then, the jester goes about doing the usual Méliès stuff--magic (as he was a stage magician before turning to films).

Sadly, the final portion of the film is HORRIBLY degraded and it would be great if they would one day find a better copy. As is, the ending is a mess. Worth seeing, but not one I'd really strongly recommend--mostly due to the print.

The Unfunny Jester

[Michael_Elliott · 27 August 2011]

François Ier et Triboulet (1907)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

aka The King and the Jester

This Georges Melies film starts off fairly slowly but eventually picks up before the print itself goes out. In the film he plays an unfunny joker trying to impress the King but keeps failing to do so. With nothing to lose the joker decides to use some magic to have a woman float in the air. At just over four-minutes it takes a while for the entertainment to start up because we have to sit through a couple minutes of the joker being unfunny. It's not entertaining for the King and it's certainly not entertaining for the viewer. Things finally start to pick up once the woman enters the picture but this is where the print starts to go out (deteriation) and the pay-off to what's going on is hard to see. This was one of the Melies films that turned out over the past several years and it's too bad that the quality turns so bad but we're lucky to have a copy at all.

Ruined copy at archive.org

[suchenwi · 1/10 · 20 June 2010]

I am very fond of archive.org (the Internet Archive), a treasure chest of public-domain material (texts,music, films etc.) that can be legally downloaded. Just this rainy Sunday I'm going through the dozens of Méliès silents (1896-1910) I got from there.

The current film deals with a king and his unfunny jester, who tries in vain to entertain his sovereign. When all else fails, he introduces a pretty girl for equilibrium performances. BUT: at about this time, the film begins to be horribly degraded. Not just scratches, losses of contours or gray levels, but really terribly destroyed, possibly by chemical reactions.

I can deal with some imperfection in old movies, but this one gave me strong, almost physical pain. :(

Deteriorated Romantic Comedy

[Tornado_Sam · 8 August 2018]

It's unclear to me in the case of this short which character is played by Méliès--the king or the jester. Admittedly, it appears as though people's claims that he plays the jester are quite knowledgeable, judging from the playful manner and physical appearance in the actor which are his; but to me it's questionable as to whether Méliès was experienced enough to pull off the cartwheels and acrobatics performed. The king also carries the director's physical appearance, and although masked somewhat his personality also shines through as being that of Méliès. Either claim could be correct, and it remains a matter of opinion which one is accurate.

Moving on, "The King and the Jester" is a comedy from the great auteur which utilizes a magic gimmick for the main joke but is largely a comedy besides. According to the Star Film Catalogue, the king in the film is apparently suffering indigestion--which there isn't any obvious evidence of when you see it. Thus, in order to get his mind of his stomach, he then calls forth the royal jester to entertain him with numerous jokes and acrobatics. The jester tries in vain, (antics of his involving prancing around and making a tower out of chairs) but doesn't succeed in amusing the king until he brings in a lovely young woman who he attempts to levitate magically. SPOILERS COMING. When His Majesty tries to kiss the woman, the jester appears in her place, thus infuriating him!

Unfortunately, when this latter part comes in--consisting of both the trick and the punchline--the print becomes badly damaged by deterioration so that the payoff is hard to view. Hard, but not impossibly so to look past, and if you can successfully look through the deteriorated image (which I have) than it is evident to the viewer that the levitation trick is extremely well-executed for the period. As stated above, not exactly a magic show however; considering the year was 1907 and the director was beginning to attempt changing with the times, the magic trick is used as part of the story and not done to show off. Obviously, a better print of the film being discovered should be in order, but at the moment it's good that we can at least understand the action albeit fall short when it comes to appreciating the superb execution of the levitating trick.