BFI

Undressing Extraordinary (1901) provides one of the earliest filmed examples of something that would become a staple of both visual comedy and Surrealist art: that of inanimate objects refusing to obey natural physical laws, usually to the detriment of the person encountering them.

The Edison company, which distributed the film in the US, regarded it as a comedy, its catalogue claiming that the audience would end up "simply convulsed in laughter", though it has also been cited as a pioneering horror film, and not simply because of the scene with the skeleton (undressing taken to its logical extreme?). After all, the inability to complete an apparently simple task for reasons beyond one's control is one of the basic ingredients of a nightmare.

Although his initial gait makes it clear that a primary cause of the traveller's discomfiture is a combination of tiredness and alcohol, the fact that we see events from his perspective but not through his eyes adds a disturbing level of realism to the hallucinations, created via well-timed jump-cuts that convey the impression of a single three-minute take.

As with many of Booth's other shorts, similar concepts can be found in films made decades later, examples including Sherlock Jr (US, d. Buster Keaton, 1924), L'Age d'Or (France, d. Luis Buñuel, 1930), Magical Maestro (US, d. Tex Avery, 1952), The Flat (Byt, Czechoslovakia, d. Jan Svankmajer, 1968) and a great many sketches from Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC, 1969-74).

Michael Brooke

*This film is included in the BFI DVD compilation 'R.W. Paul: The Collected Films 1895-1908', with music by Stephen Horne and optional commentary by Ian Christie.

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