The Hilarious Posters (1906)

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I would retitle this the not very funny posters. It's the same old idea of a set of eight posters, with various subjects, coming to life. It's just that the things they do aren't very interesting. They dump stuff on people. They fight. Melies came a long way in his films. A few of these later ones just don't cut the mustard.

'The Hilarious Posters (1906)' is a clever effects film from French cinemagician Georges Méliès. A workman affixes a giant poster to a wall and departs, before all the posters come to life to cause mischief. A group of policemen arrive on the scene, but are bombarded with flour, and the poster-figures eventually escape into the real world. The transition from the two-dimensional posters to their flesh-and-blood counterparts is a little abrupt, and might have worked better as a slow fade, but otherwise the effect is impressive. Méliès must have built a nifty film set to house each of the poster characters in the one frame, especially the figures in the top poster (who are depicted, unlike their companions, in full profile). The visual effect - that is, an assumed still image suddenly coming to life - mirrors the advent of cinema itself, at which photographs were suddenly made to move. Méliès later wrote of his first experience with cinema: "a still photograph showing the place Bellecour in Lyon was projected... I had hardly finished speaking when a horse pulling a wagon began to walk towards us, followed by other vehicles and then pedestrians, in short all the animation of the street. Before this spectacle we sat with gaping mouths, struck with amazement, astonished beyond all expression." By recreating this experience with posters we at first assume to be two-dimensional and lifeless, Méliès makes a self-reflexive statement about cinema itself.

Hilarious Posters, The (1906) *** (out of 4)aka Les Affiches en goguetteThis here remains one of Melies best known works due in large part to it being shown on countless compilations as well as various free sites (like Youtube). The film has a billboard showing off various people and it quickly comes to life before going back to the billboard. In a twist, the billboard jumps back to life so that those on it can throw things at the man making money off of it. This type of trick show really isn't anything new from Melies but it still works simply because of the charm. The movie runs a quick three-minutes and manages to get a few nice laughs but the technology of the trick shot is pretty low-key especially when compared to some of the work the director was doing even earlier than this.

Director Georges Méliès was well-known for his absolutely astounding creativity and camera tricks in the very, very early years of films. No other director came close to him in these respects and he is my favorite early film maker. While this is a super-original and clever film, I must admit that the camera tricks look pretty primitive compared to his other works. But, considering just how funny the film it, I can forgive this.The short film starts with a couple guys putting up some posters. Then after they leave, the posters come to life and some even leave their frames and play pranks on each other AND unsuspecting passers by. This ultimately leads to a funny showdown with the police. A cute and amiable little film.If you want to see this film online, go to Google and type in "Méliès" and then click the video button for a long list of his films that are viewable without special software.