Pélicans (1896) User Reviews

His Beak Can Hold More Than His Bellican

[boblipton · 6/10 · 12 November 2023]

At the London Zoological Garden, several pelicans flap around a pond.

It's another of the movies directed by Alexandre Promio for the Lumieres, and like several of them, it's an exotic location. London was not in France, no matter how much Napoleon might have yearned.

I was surprised in doing a spot of research for this review that the famous jingle about the pelican -- I quote the second line in the title of this review -- was written not by Ogden Nash, but by a fellow named Dixon Lanier Merritt. So you not only get my opinion, you learn something.

They're quite graceful birds, flapping around the water.

Maybe

[boblipton · 6/10 · 22 October 2019]

If I am correct, the movie I saw was shot by Alexandre Promio, one of the earliest of the Lumieres' acolytes. He traveled around the world, to Britain, Canada and the US, and seems to have spent some time at the London Zoological Gardens, shooting (with a film camera, not a gun) lions, and here, pelicans, flapping around their enclosure. There are a couple of onlookers.

The copy I saw seemed to be damaged, with the movement slow and erratic. Apparently Promio was still learning to crank his camera; within a couple of years, the ability to crank at a steady place, varying the rate at will, would be a prime ability. It wouldn't be until 1912 that a motorized movie camera would become commercially available.