The Kingdom of the Fairies
A 1903 French silent trick film by Georges Méliès.
The Kingdom of the Fairies is a 1903 French silent trick film directed by Georges Méliès. It was released in the United States as Fairyland, or the Kingdom of the Fairies and in Great Britain as The Wonders of the Deep, or Kingdom of the Fairies.
Quick Facts
- Director
- Georges Méliès
- Starring
- Bleuette Bernon; Georges Méliès
- Released
- 1903, 9
- Runtime
- 320 meters (16-17 minutes)
- Country
- France
- Language
- Silent
Facts from the source article.
Production
Film historian Georges Sadoul suggested the film was freely adapted from La Biche au Bois, a féerie by the brothers Goignard first produced in March 1845. A publication by the Centre national du cinéma cites Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty as the most direct inspiration, with the seven fairies reduced to four. The cast includes Georges Méliès as Prince Bel-Azor, Marguerite Thévenard as Princess Azurine, and Bleuette Bernon as the fairy Aurora. Sadoul identified actor Durafour as a supporting player. Most filming was indoors, but the nuptial cortege scene was shot outdoors in Méliès's garden with a real horse. Special effects used stage machinery, rolling panoramas, miniature models, pyrotechnics, substitution splices, superimpositions, and dissolves.
Release
The film was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and numbered 483–498 in its catalogues. It was registered for American copyright at the Library of Congress on 3 September 1903. According to Méliès scholar John Frazer, it was the most ambitious Star Film production to date and was widely distributed and heavily promoted. An original film score was prepared for projection in larger cities. As with at least 4% of Méliès's output, some prints were individually hand-colored and sold at a higher price.
Reception
The film was one of the most popular of the early twentieth century, alongside A Trip to the Moon and The Impossible Voyage. When Thomas L. Tally debuted it at his Lyric Theater in Los Angeles in 1903, billing it as Better than A Trip to the Moon, the Los Angeles Times called it an interesting exhibit of the limits to which moving picture making can be carried. Film theorist Jean Mitry called it undoubtedly Méliès's best film, and in any case the most intensely poetic. Prints survive in the film archives of the British Film Institute and the Library of Congress.
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