The Wooden-Headed Veteran (lost French silent comedy film; 1908)

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Status: Lost

The Wooden-Headed Veteran (originally L'invalide à la tête de bois) was a French silent comedy film based off of a French book of the same name. It was released in America on January 8th, 1909.[1] While the director and the cast of the movie are unknown, it is known that a company named Pathé Frères produced the short. No posters or any images of the movie have shown up online.

Plot

Very little is known about the plot or how closely it followed the book but it is reportedly about a veteran who lost his head in battle and is given a new wooden one to replace it. The veteran was also given many other heads for other occasions.

Scene Breakdown From Translation / A VERY rough translation

The invalid gets up, he goes to the bathroom and puts his head on his shoulders. He goes out for his usual walk, and he meets a spirited midinette ( Parisian shopgirl), he follows in her footsteps and she goes to sit on a bench where he sits next to her. He speaks to her and she laughs, bursting out laughing, telling him he's too ugly. Desperate, our invalid goes to the merchant of wooden heads, and there he fixes his choice, on the one that seems to him the most conquering. Then he goes to find his little wife. How handsome he is now, she agrees to accompany him to Meudon. They take the boat, but someone falls in the water, without wasting a minute, our invalid undoes his head, and as a buoy throws it into the water. Out of the water, the stranger gives his head back to our invalid who immediately fixes it on his shoulders.

Arrival in Meudon. Kisses under the arbor and good men appear who would like to play boules, but there are none. Our invalid offers his head and his leg and they accept. The same for playing bilboquet. A dog arrives and seizes our invalid's head, he tries to catchup to the dog. Finally, someone throws a bone, and the dog drops the wooden head. Our invalid immediately puts the head back on his shoulders.

In the evening, he takes the train again in the company of his little wife, they are alone in their compartment, but a large family arrives who wants to take their place in the car, our invalid prefers not to be disturbed, he immediately undoes his head and shows up at the door. Terror of all the people on the quay. Nobody thinks about taking a seat in the company of our man, to his great satisfaction as well as his companion


Awakening the invalid, the arms signal the servant that he wishes to put on his logwood head (poivrot's head) 10 place the servant opens a cupboard in which is the collection of spare heads of different types. The servant takes the designated one and places it on the chest. from the invalid, who is getting dresses a little and is out.

Leaving the invalid He visits several wine merchants and begins to stagger. As a wise precaution the servant advises him to return home because he is becoming exuberant.

His home

His servant unscrews his head and asks him for the one he wants. He chooses that of an old man with his heart shaped mouth, curls his mustache in front of a glass and leaves in the hope of making a conquest-

In the street - he winks at all the women he meets and gets kicked out. Esplanade des Invalid - a jovial nanny crosses the esplanade, accompanying a little boy and little girl; the invalid notices the maid and follows her; she returns the children.

In Tua Square - The maid sits on a bench; a schoolboy taking a walk comes to keep her company and strikes up a conversation; she signals to the children to go and play; the invalid arrives and, seeing the bench, occupied goes further furious.

In the square Four invalid with wooden legs rest on a bench; they joke among themselves, chatting about their time when their attention is caught by the two children who with dangling arms look at them in silence.

Why don't you play? Said one of the old glories - We don't have any tows answer the little ones, never mind, adds the invalid; and making a sigh to his fellow-students he begins to remove his wooden legs interested immediately by them.

The children take the wooden legs that are stretched out to them and arrange them in quinquancy ( note: I'm guessing this is a game? )on the directions of the good old men. Once the game is in place, they signal that the ball is missing; arrival of the wooden-headed invalid has come to join his comrades, he gets them out of trouble by offering them his head and the children can play bowling in their eyes softened by the good invalids.

In the square - the maid ends the conversation with the schoolboy who leaves her, and looking for the children, she arrives and is amazed to see them playing such a game; she makes a sign to them to return the goods to each one of the, little boys throws in the air the wooden head which comes to be replaced like a cup and ball on the Invalid's neck. The maid leads the children by the hand and the invalid letting go of his comrades on the whose limbs have remained on the ground, in the footsteps of the maid who flees

External Link

Reference


gif created of surviving known footage