French Film Festival – Phono-Cinema-Theater

Special Event (with live musicians)

Exceptional Screening of the recovered and restored film “attraction” presented at the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition

The long history of talking movies starts with Edison’s invention of the kinetoscope, but tremendous steps were taken during the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition. Among the performances presented during the Exposition, the Photo-Cinema-Theater was one of the most successful artistic achievements.

The Phono-Cinema-Theater is a special “attraction” which conjugates many different genres: talking film synchronized with phonograph (songs, monologs, theater play excerpts), but also dances and pantomimes which are simply accompanied by a piano or an orchestra. There was also a sound effect maker and probably a ‘bonimenteur’. The program show cased the most renowned artists of the time, coming from the prestigious Comédie Française as well as vaudeville theaters, music-halls and circus.

For theater, Coquelin the eldest, Gabrielle Réjane, Sarah Bernhardt, Félicia Mallet
For opera and operetta : Mariette Sully, Emile Cossira, Jeanne Hatto, Mily-Meyer, Désiré Pougaud
For ‘café-concert’ and music-hall : Footit et Chocolat, Mason and Forbes, Little Tich, Brunin, Polin, Jules Moy…
For dance, Blanche and Louise Mante from the Paris Opera, Carlotta Zambelli, Michel Vasquez, Rosita Mauri, Jeanne Chasles, Achille Viscusi, Christine Kerf, Cléo de Mérode. . .

The Phono-Cinema-Theater premiere took place on April 28, 1900 at the Paris Exposition Universelle.

Thanks to the impressive work of restoration undertaken by the Cinémathèque française since 2010 on the recovered films of the Phono-Cinema-Theater, it is possible today to have the amazing opportunity to admire the best dancers, theater actors, pantomime and music-hall performers of the ‘Belle Epoque’, to savor, just about as in 1900, one of the most beautiful cinematographic attraction of the Paris Exposition Universelle.

Adapted from Laurent Mannoni
(Directeur at the Cinémathèque Française for Cinema Cultural Heritage
and the Conservatory of Cinematographic Techniquess and Equipment)