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The Escaped Lunatic
(1904) United States of America
B&W : [?] 617 or 683? feet
Directed by Wallace McCutcheon
Cast: (unknown)
American Mutoscope & Biograph Company production; distributed by American Mutoscope & Biograph Company and Kleine Optical Company. / Cinematography by A.E. Weed. / © 12 January 1904 by American Mutoscope & Biograph Company. Released January 1904. / [?] Biograph 68mm spherical 1.36:1 format? / The film was also released in the USA (at 419 feet) by American Mutoscope & Biograph Company in October 1904.
Comedy: Chase.
Synopsis: [From Biograph promotional materials] This is one of the most exciting and at the same time one of the most laughable subjects ever made. A lunatic confined in a barred cell, labors under the delusion that he is the Emperor Napoleon. In the first scene we see him in an altercation with his keepers over the quality of food furnished him. The keepers set upon him and beat him unmercifully and leave him unconscious. He comes to and determines to escape. Wrenching a leg from a table he bursts the bar of a window, smashes the glass and crawls out. The next scene shows him dropping a distance of 30 feet to the ground below. He picks himself up and starts off at a run. The faces of the keepers appear at the cell window for an instant, but quickly they come running out of the main entrance to the asylum, and start in pursuit of the escaped lunatic. Then follows a series of thrilling and ludicrous chases through the mostly picturesque scenery. The lunatic is cornered on a bridge over a waterfall, but manages to overcome the keeper and hurls him into the rapids below. In another scene he crosses a torrent on a slender wire cable swinging loose above it. Time after time the lunatic succeeds in circumventing his keepers. Finally, however, he tires of the chase and is seen running back to the asylum. He leaps the 30 feet back to the window and when the keepers, all blown and covered with mud, rush into the cell, Napoleon I, is calmly reading a newspaper.
Survival status: Print exists in the Library of Congress film archive (paper print collection) [35mm paper positive].
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Keywords: Chases
Listing updated: 12 February 2010.
References: Bohn-Light p. 109; Musser-Emerge pp. 5, 352, 354, 360, 386, 601; Niver-First pp. 57, 58, 76, 77 : Website-AFI.
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