Les Surprises de l'amour - Comique Fou rire - 1909
ABOUT THE FILM : Les Surprises de l'amour - Comique Fou rire
Lobster FilmsLove's Surprises - Side-splitting Comedy
Year: 1909
Everyone seems to be looking for an excuse to get away from the Sunday lunch table. But where are the father and both his sons running off to? To their mistress’s, of course.
This exceptional nitrate copy, coloured using a stencil process (which is extremely rare for a film by the great Max Linder), was discovered in the nineties by a collector from Charente.
Nationality: French
Actors: Max Linder, Jacques Vandenne
Length: 6' 11"
Genre: comedy
Sound: silent with soundtrack
Original elements: black & white
Producer: Pathé
Original language: French
A BRIEF HISTORY : Les Surprises de l'amour - Comique Fou rire
Max Linder (1883-1925) is the first comic star in the history of cinema. Gabriel Leuvielle is launched by Pathé in 1905 under the Max Linder pseudonym. His career is triumphant. His top hated dandy part fits him like a glove. He is even approached in 1915 to substitute for a star of an American company, making for new horizons, a certain Charlie Chaplin.
In Chicago, and after the war in Los Angeles, Max Linder directs three films in which he stars, among which the noticeable Seven Years Bad Luck and The Three Must-Get-Theres which he considers to be his best film.
Linder has imitated, experimented, and invented a lot. He was also an outstanding producer and businessman, building his own movie theater on the grand boulevards in Paris.
Yet, victim of his own success, he neglects his personal life and has a tragic end in 1925.
The restoration of Les Surprises de l'Amour from 28mm black and white prints (obsolete format invented by Pathé in 1912) is part of the Lumière European project. It is only in the 90's that a collector from Charente rediscovered this exceptional nitrate print, colored by using stencils (which is extremely rare for a film by Linder).
Here is the final version: restored, colored, and... hilarious.
