Page:Star Film Catalogue 1908.pdf/138

 then they run. The chase leads through a number of comical situations, a frenzied, howling populace, headed by a few courageous gendarmes being the pursuers. The climax of the pursuit is reached when the musical fugitives seek refuge in what is still standing of a building in the course of demolition. The pursuers follow, when suddenly a wall topples and the next second there is an avalanche of debris, rocks, timber, etc. The next picture now shows the funeral of one of the gendarmes who was killed in the wreck. Apparently the musicians' human feelings of brotherhood have overcome them, for they are now seen, with their instruments, at the head of the procession, which consists of a motley assemblage, in single file, of humans shaped in all the various forms that Nature ever attempted, including such artificial addition as red noses. Everybody is weeping, and there seems to be some competition for the largest handkerchief. The musicians strike their notes, and the funeral march follows, the grotesque mourners stepping as if their legs were made out of dough, and were moved by machinery which at that time happens to be out of order.

980–987. Hamlet Prince of Denmark. Length, 570 feet. Price, $68.40.

The melancholy disposition of the young prince is demonstrated to good advantage in the grave-yard scene where the diggers are interrupted in their weird pastime of joshing among the tombstones by the appearance of Hamlet and his friend. After questioning them he picks up one of the skulls about a newly-dug grave, and is told that it is the skull of a certain Yorick who was known to Hamlet in his natural life. Hamlet slowly takes up the skull, and his manner strongly indicates "Alas, poor York, I knew him well!" The following scenes combine to show the high state of dementia of the young Prince's mentality. He is seen in his room where he is continually annoyed and excited by apparitions which taunt him in their weirdness and add bitterness to his troubled brain. He attempts to grasp them but in vain, and he falls to brooding. Now is shown the scene in which he meets the ghost of his father and is told to take vengeance on the reigning monarch, his uncle; but not content with this, Hamlet's fates tantalize him further, by sending into his presence the ghost of his departed sweetheart, Ophelia. He attempts to embrace her, as she throws flowers to him from a garland on her brow, but his efforts are futile; and when he sees the apparition fall to the ground he, too, swoons away, and is thus found by several courtiers. He is raving mad and storms about in a manner entirely unintelligible to them; but they calm him gradually. The last scene shows the duel before the king, when Hamlet returns from the fool's errand upon which his royal uncle had sent him in order to get rid of him. The word is passed, and the well-known story of the duel before the king takes place in pictures which show the Prince's antagonist as he falls after a fierce combat. Now the episode of the poisoned drink, which the king had prepared for Hamlet, is depicted; his villainous mother takes the drink instead, and falls lifeless. Hamlet is now desperate, and bidding the courtiers to stand aside, he ends the life of his wicked uncle with one thrust of his sword, and then turns the weapon on himself; before dying he tells the secret of his terrible enmity toward the king, then sinks to the ground. Lying upon his shield, he is carried off on the shoulders of the courtiers.