Jan 7, 2021
French Frights: The Manor House of Fear
In 1927, Alfred Machin, director, photograph, reporter and explorer released a one-hour long horror film starring his favorite monkey: Eustache.
The more I study French genre movies for this series the more I come to the conclusion that horror and fantasy have always been part of France’s dreamscape. Makes sense since a lot of modern pop culture can be traced back to the French serials of the 18th and 19th century. Yet, genre fiction have become a rare breed after WWII, and if, we except the revival of the New Wave of French Extremism, efforts have been few and far apart. A reality which collides harshly with the striving forces the genre bore in previous era.
Take Alfred Machin for instance. Machin was first a photographer before becoming a director of photography on documentaries. As some sort of colonial adventurer, the young man explored some part of Africa by riding the Nile on boat and shooting his encounters with wild animals — according to sources going dangerously close to the beast s— through hunts and fiction. Sadly, the trip took so long, only two movies could be made out of it for the films came back to France in horrible condition.
Of course, the white man exploring a not-so-white continent and confronting himself to the dangers of nature and wilderness was a common trope during the colonies and it always made me wonder. It was through those dark times that alleged explorers invented tales of trees able to devour human beings, or tyranosaurs survivng in some dark territories of the African continent. Legends, white folklore which in and by itself uphold the myth of an European civilization trying to propel the Wild Lands into a future of prosperity and progress. Those myths crumble under the assault of colonialist litterature such as Joseph Conrad’s work, but were also supported by the likes of Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
Different eras, different manners as we say in France.
Once he came back in his native country with his diseased films, Machin took the responsabilities of two branches of production for the Pathé Company. One involving the making of comedy movies while the other concerned exotic movies — definitely involving wild beasts. Always this passion — fetish? — for wild animals, big cats…
Appreciative of his work, the tentacular studio soon asked him to go to Belgium in order to create there what would become their Belgian branch. In doing so, Machin somehow became part and originator of a Belgian cinema which strives to these days, by building studios next to Moellenbeeck notably. It is there that he would begin to direct full-lenght features, one of them predicting the rise of World War I and colored using ink can still be seen to this day. It’s also said that Machin was credited for some of the first footage ever shot from planes, an achievement for which he got recognition.
When The Great War started, the photograph turned director now transformed into a war reporter. He is said to have shot the sole images which exists of the Battle of Verdun. And to have been the one responsible for the footage of French trenches found in D.W. Griffith’s movie Hearts of the World.
After the end of the conflict, Machin decided to set up his own studio, in Nice south of France. He also built a menagerie there, a zoo of sort, whom animal he would use in his movies. The warm climate of the region may have played a part in his decision for implementation. Still it’s 20km up north that Machin would find the small town of Gattière whose tortuous streets would give him the inspiration for a movie he would call L’Homme en Noir — The Man in Black.
As co-director we find Henry Wuschleger who was most importantly a director of photography which might explain the beautiful cinematrophy and the German expressionism-like aspect of certain sequences. Movies was shot in 1927 and it seems obvious The Cabinet of Dr Calligari had a huge influence upon its creation.
Still, Machin’s fingerprints can still be found all over the project. First is Eustache, Machin’s pet chimpanzee, around which he had already centered a flick. Second is the train wreck sequence, which while oddly reminiscent of the one in Louis Feuillade’s Fantômas movie serial, is in fact most likely linked to the director previous life as a reporter.
On the 14th of August 1910, two trains collided near Saujon, because of a problem in directions. Alfred Machin was a passenger on one of those trains, yet luckily didn’t get hurt. At first, the reporter went on rescuing his fellow voyagers but when he witnessed the effort of the local population to save everyone, the young man grabbed a camera and started filming the event.
Certainly , you could not change a freelance cameraman, even in the early 19th century.
Surprisingly enough, despite his whole menagerie, his particular cinematography and its grandiose special effects, The Man in Black much like Machin’s previous efforts starring animals failed to grapple French audiences. Still, not a man to bend his back, the director/explorer sold the rights to this movie to Universal who in turned renamed it The Manor House of Fear, title with which it has been known to this day, even here in France. Oddly, it appears just as Alexandre Aja or Xavier Gens, French genre filmmakers were always more in luck on the other side of the Atlantic.
Of the 150 movies, Machin shot throughout his life, only 37 remain, a sad fact which could make him compare to the legend of Georges Méliès himself.
But Alfred Machin, being the colonial explorer that he was had one last trick in his sleeve. Search not intently enough and you’ll soon read that he died because of an injury caused by Myrza, his favorite pet panther. Some karmic showdown which our modern society likes to feed on. Reality was less glamour, and it’s no wonder why society chose to forgot it, on the 16th on June 1929, Alfred Machin died of a pulmonary disease, in his bed.
But, eh, those were the colonies day, a time white civilisation craved for legends while modernisation slowly killed their folklore.
Next week we’ll talk about The Goonies and the art of editing!
