Le Voyage dans la lune (1902)

Inspired partly by the Jules Verne novel from 1865, From the Earth to the Moon, "Le voyage dans la lune" was filmed in the newly born studios of Mèliés' Star Film in Montreuil near Paris.

The filming took four months at a considerable cost for the times: more than 10,000 francs; Mèliés himself took care of almost everything, from the scenography to developing the films and printing them. For the complicated costumes for the Selenites (the inhabitants of the moon) he was assisted by Jeanne d'Alcly, his future wife after he was left a widower.

It was hand filmed at 16 frames a second, and it is a film made up of 30 "sets" or scenes with a fixed shot where characters interacted in front of painted sets and often movable scenographies. Apart from Mèliés himself who interpreted Professor Barbenfoullis, many others were employed: actors from Parisian theatres, singers from music halls, girls from the Chàtelet Théâtre ballet who played the stars; the moon was a well known Parisian soubrette, Bluette Bernon. For the roles of the Selenites, acrobats from the Folies-Bergère were used.

The plot is rather simple: the president of the Association of Astronomers, Professor Barbenfoullis, organises an exploratory mission to the moon in the company of Messrs. Alcofribas, Omega, Nostradamus, Micromegas and Parafaragamus, who, after long and messy discussions, gather together in a workshop where a missile that will take the six hearties to the moon is being built.

During the ceremony, the travellers settle in the missile which is then shot out of a gigantic cannon at the face of the planet. The missile-projectile disappears in space, where we see a calm and smiling moon; but its calm is interrupted by the missile, which hits it in its right eye, much to its disapproval! Once on the moon's surface, they discover, by exploring a crater, fantastic fauna, streams and mushrooms as tall as trees, and the magic of watching the umbrella of one of the explorers transformed into an enormous mushroom. After a while, they meet a monster that resembles a crustacean: it is a Selenite, an inhabitant of the planet.

They try to fight them by making their umbrellas explode, but they are overcome by the greater numbers and imprisoned. They are condemned to death, but Barbenfoullis doesn't give up and manages to escape with his companions towards the rocket and, after taking one prisoner, they leap into the empty ship, which heads quickly to earth, ending up in the ocean, where they are fished out and taken to land by steamship. They are welcomed with honour and decorated with the Order of the Moon; the tied up Selenite is made to dance in front of an ecstatic public.

At the end, a commemorative statue is inaugurated in their honour with the inscription, "Labor omnia vincit." The success was phenomenal all over the world, and this work can be considered the first science fiction film to know world success in the history of cinema.

Unfortunately, Mèliés was not prepared for all this and never received proper compensation for his work, so the film was liberally copied and exported all over, and resold by Edison and Lubin, who earned enormous sums, never paying royalties to Mèliés.