The greatest movie ever!

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

A Disappointing Continuation

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

. . . which I saw in a double feature today after seeing this original version--which is perhaps a technological advance for its time, but totally unacceptable from a moral standpoint. In this 1902 version of Jack's story, produced by the infamous robber baron Thomas Edison, Jack dresses like a girl, disobeys his mom to climb the beanstalk, spies on the Abraham Lincoln-sized "giant," steals his valuables, and finally kills the taller than average crime victim as he's descending the beanstalk to recover his valuables. Jack is egged-on, aided & abetted at every turn by a magic wand-waving fairy godmother, who turns Jack & his mom into royalty at the close, heaping further riches upon this thief (not all that different from how Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, & Edison himself were able to loot America and lord it over everyone else at the turn of the 20th Century, before the U.S. enjoyed modern business regulations). JACK THE GIANT SLAYER, on the other hand, is about a nice boy who knows his place, only kills giants (actual ones, not a 6' 4" guy!) to save humanity, and does not have a larcenous bone in his body. With no nudity, little swearing, & few scenes of graphic violence, the latest remake is perfect for the 8 to 80 demographic. Though JACK THE GIANT SLAYER runs 104 minutes longer than this cluttered original, it is much easier to sit through, and is NOT the hard-core homage to criminality that is the elephant-electrocuter's morally reprehensible 1902 mash-up.

The Edison Company's "Jack and the Beanstalk" is another example of Georges Méliès's deep and widespread influence throughout the world of early cinema, but it's also remarkably innovative in itself for its time. Méliès largely introduced the story film to cinema with his adaptations of fairy tales, including "Cinderella" (1899), "Bluebeard" (1901), "Little Red Riding Hood" (1901) and other Féeries (fairy films). These films added narrative and new filmic storytelling devices to the editing and camera effects he had founded in his trick film attractions. For "Jack and the Beanstalk", Edwin S. Porter with George S. Fleming inserted an Anglo fairytale instead of the Charles Perrault stories used by Méliès, but otherwise almost exclusively imitate the style and techniques found in Méliès's Féeries. In England, Robert W. Paul and Walter R. Booth had already done essentially the same sort of Anglicization of Méliès with their film "The Magic Sword" (1901).One of the outcomes of this imitation is that the Edison Company produced what was probably the most advanced narrative film made in America as of then; certainly no other US film from before it that I've seen or heard of quite compares. Albeit, America at this time was lagging behind France and Britain in the development of the story film; and, as historian Charles Musser has pointed out ("Before the Nickelodeon"), for a few months between 1901 and 1902, Edison legally monopolized the production of motion pictures in the states. With 10 scenes (or tableaux) and 625 feet of film, running over 10 minutes, "Jack and the Beanstalk" is comparable in length to Méliès's early Féeries while being far ahead of any motion picture previously produced in the US.Technically, the use of dissolves as a transition between scenes and the substitution splices (stop-substitutions) and superimposition trick effects are all borrowed from Méliès. The superimposed vision/dream scene-within-a-scene conjured by the fairy in the fourth and seventh tableaux were based on similar scenes in Méliès's "Cinderella", "Bluebeard" and other films; notably, George Albert Smith, in England, was also an early pioneer of multiple-exposure photography and created scenes-within-scenes in his films as early as 1898, such as in "Santa Claus". Moreover, the interpolation of a fairy into the "Jack and Beanstalk" tale is straight from Méliès's Féeries, which generally feature a fairy godmother who manipulates the narrative and guides the hero—sometimes by projecting visions, serving as the filmmaker's on-screen surrogate by directing such films-within-the-film. The stagy, painted decors; the sudden, irrelevant appearance of dancing girls; and the theatrical final tableau pose were all classic Méliès trademarks, too.Additionally, the story seems to use Joseph Jacobs's non-moralizing version of the fairytale, so Jack simply intrudes on the giant's home, engages his wife against him, steals his wealth and kills him out of greed. Looking back at such an amoral narrative is rather refreshing, at least nowadays, when a moral seems to be incumbent upon most stories. The Edison Company catalogue, however—which may have served as a guide to live lecturers who would add further description for audiences back then, as was common practice—gives the Benjamin Tabart moral treatment by making the Giant the villain.Regardless of the demonstrative overriding influence of Méliès on "Jack and the Beanstalk", it remains a significant production for the time and place it was made. It's a mostly self-contained narrative and is more complex than were most films before it: linking scenes and achieving continuity of action across shots and between exteriors and interiors and, at least, having some production values. These early story films were an important advance; they claimed editorial control for producers and away from exhibitors, who had afore arranged the single shot-scene films into programs. From here, Porter made such other early story films as "Life of an American Fireman" and "The Great Train Robbery" (both 1903).

I'm writing a book about "folding" in film, a situation which in its simplest form is seen as a movie within a movie.This is the earliest example I know. The movie itself is about 12 minutes long. There are no dialog cards because presumably all viewers would know the story in detail already. Modern audiences will find the presentation pretty hokey. But there are two episodes within this that have an interesting effect. There is a fairy godmother which to my knowledge is not in the original story. She is invented just for the movie. She manipulates events somewhat. Among her interventions are the creation of visions for our hero.The first time is in a dream, and the second in "real life" (or perhaps a dream). Both illustrate what is to come. These are presented in the movie as a movie that the fairy "projects" onto the background. At the end she appears again to merge the two worlds. Ted's law of abstraction holds even in this early example: the distance between our world and the world of the movie is the same as that between the movie and the world of the movie within.Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

For its era, this was rather an ambitious and creative attempt to film the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" with as much visual detail as possible. Certainly, few of the camera effects are going to impress anyone now, but they are not at all bad given the limitations. It's really a children's story, and any children who saw this in 1902 would probably have enjoyed it more than enough to justify the effort of making it.For all that the technical limitations are obvious, and the visual effects in the rudimentary stage, this version does clearly communicate the basic story in a generally entertaining fashion. To be sure, even in 1902 there were pioneers such as Méliès who were already doing more impressive things. But this one is by no means bad, and features like this, while their defects are obvious, still hold their appeal for those of us who enjoy seeing what the earliest movies were like.