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The Haunted Hotel - Wikipedia

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The Haunted Hotel

Directed by	J. Stuart Blackton
Starring	Paul Panzer William V. Ranous
Cinematography	Albert E. Smith
Production company	American Vitagraph Company
Release date	1907 (1907)
Running time	5 minutes
Country	United States of America
Language	Silent

The Haunted Hotel is a 1907 American silent comic trick film written, produced, and directed by J. Stuart Blackton. One of the oldest surviving animated films, it combines live action and stop motion to animate objects.^[1]

Plot

The film starts with an outside view of a small house, obviously a model. The windows and door start moving and the house take the shape of a face. A traveller enters the hotel and things start to move by themselves. A waiter brings the dinner and, on the table, the bread is cut by a knife moving by itself and coffee and sugar are served without human intervention.

A small figure comes out of the milk jug to pour the milk in the cup before returning to the jug. The flabbergasted guest brings out of the jug a napkin which starts dancing by itself and, when he finally catches it, it turns into a sheet. The man finally goes to bed. The room starts turning around. The film ends with a big monster appearing behind the bed and catching into his huge hands the traveler and his blanket.

Cast

Paul Panzer as The Traveller
William V. Ranous as The Waiter

Production and reception

For the production of The Haunted Hotel, Blackton combined various tricks such as double exposure or objects hanging from wires with the stop-motion process. Vitagraph advertised the film as "Impressive, indefinable, insoluble, positively the most marvelous film ever invented."^[2]

The film became such a hit in Europe and in the United States that it gained "a reputation as the first animated picture (...) and the most popular up to that point".^[3] The film became the best-selling American film in France and in all of Europe over 150 prints were delivered. Public response in Paris, where Vitagraph had recently opened an office, "was so strong that all the French producers racked their brains trying to figure out the tricks that made objects move by themselves. After considerable difficulty the secret was discovered and the history of cartoons could begin."^[4]

Blackton would continue the use of stop motion in The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1908) and several other short films.

References

^ Review, synopsis and link to watch the film: "A cinema history". Retrieved 12 May 2020.
^ Silent Film Stars on the Stages of Seattle. A History of Performances by Hollywood Notables. Eric L. Flom, p.237. McFarland & Company, Inc. 1968. ISBN 978-0-7864-3908-9.
^ Buccaneer: James Stuart Blackton and the Birth of American Movies, p. 87. Rowman & Littlefield. 2016. ISBN 978-1-4422-4258-6.
^ Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898-1928, p.15. Donald Crafton. The University of Chicago. 1993. ISBN 0-226-11667-0.

External links

v t e Films directed by J. Stuart Blackton
Feature films	The Life of Moses (1909) The Battle Cry of Peace (1915) Whom the Gods Destroy (1916) The Judgment House (1917) Womanhood, the Glory of the Nation (1917) Life's Greatest Problem (1918) The World for Sale (1918) The Common Cause (1919) My Husband's Other Wife (1920) Passers By (1920) The House of the Tolling Bell (1920) Respectable by Proxy (1920) Man and His Woman (1920) The Blood Barrier (1920) The Forbidden Valley (1920) The Glorious Adventure (1922) A Gipsy Cavalier (1922) The Virgin Queen (1923) On the Banks of the Wabash (1923) Between Friends (1924) Let Not Man Put Asunder (1924) The Beloved Brute (1924) The Clean Heart (1924) Behold This Woman (1924) The Happy Warrior (1925) The Redeeming Sin (1925) Tides of Passion (1925) Bride of the Storm (1926) Hell-Bent for Heaven (1926) The Gilded Highway (1926) The Passionate Quest (1926) The American (1927)
Short films	The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1898) The Enchanted Drawing (1900) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom (1905) Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) The Automobile Thieves (1906) The Haunted Hotel (1907) A Curious Dream (1907) Macbeth (1908) Romeo and Juliet (1908) Antony and Cleopatra (1908) Oliver Twist (1909) Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy (1909) Les Misérables (1909) A Midsummer Night's Dream (1909)
Related	Vitagraph Studios Paula Blackton (wife) Marian Constance Blackton (daughter)

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