Cheminée fume, La / Il camino fuma The Smoking Chimney(1907) Production: Pathé Frères –
Lenght: 43m –
Intertitles: Italian –
Première: 02/08/1907 –
The film:
In an elegant apartment a maid prepares to light the f ire, and something goes wrong. The room f ills with smoke, the owners run in to open the window, the neighbours get into a state, and a chimney-sweep and the fire brigade are called in. Thanks to the firemen the cause of the sudden mishap is revealed: two thieves perched on the roof have blocked the chimney with bundles of rags. The firemen see to it that jets of water from a fire hose “refresh the ideas” of the two malefactors.
While early French cinema of ten depicted the police and “guards” as figures of fun, the real heroes of the situation in this film are the firemen, ready to save lives and safeguard the integrity of the private home, the temple of the family and its decorum – an institution, in the comedies of the period, constantly under attack by thieves, fires, incompetent servants, and cars falling from roofs.
In the finale, as is often the case in rooftop scenes in Pathé films, the painted canvas backdrop that represents the expanse of the city’s roofs and chimney pots gives the shot a faintly surreal look, almost like a lunar landscape.
The digital process:
On 1 November 1912 Pathé, one of the world’s biggest film companies, launched its first home cinema system – a parlour projector for a family audience, curiously resembling a Singer sewing machine. Its advertising slogan ran: “KOK: Cinema in your own home! Joy for grown-ups! Happiness for children!”. The 28mm Cinématographe de Salon KOK projector was the first successor to the magic lantern, which had long been popular among the rich bourgeoisie and aristocratic families.
The Smoking Chimney was digitized in 2017 through a partnership involving the film archives of Turin, Toulouse, and Limoges, starting with the films from the 28mm collection in Turin. Repair work and scanning in 2K were carried out by the Cinémathèque de Nouvelle-Aquitaine, and image-enhancement and finalizing by the Cinémathèque de Toulouse. Our thanks go to the Gaumont Pathé Archives for their help in identifying the films.
