First movie about robots, from 1897, has just been found

A strip of film from George Méliès’ 1897 short “Gugusse and the Automaton,” which is thought to be the first film to feature what might be called a robot.

The first movie to feature what might be called a robot — not seen in more than a century — has been found.

A copy of “Gugusse and the Automaton,” an 1897 short made by legendary film pioneer George Méliès, was discovered by a man in Grand Rapids, Mich., in a box of films that had been owned by his great-grandfather. The Library of Congress revealed the find on its blog “Timeless: Stories From the Library of Congress,” on Thursday, Feb. 26.

“This is one of the collections that makes you realize why you do this,” said Courtney Holschuh, the archive technician who unraveled the film.

Article continues below this ad

Méliès (1861-1938) was a French filmmaker whose most famous work, “A Trip to the Moon” (1902), featured an iconic shot of a space capsule landing in the Moon’s “eye.” Martin Scorsese paid tribute to Méliès in his family film “Hugo” (2011).

“Gugusse and the Automaton,” which lasts 45 seconds, is a slapstick comedy that depicts a magician cranking up an automaton — a mechanical contraption — dressed as a clown. Using a large mallet, the magician hammers the automaton, played in the film by a real-life human actor, into smaller and smaller sizes.

Because of Méliès’ reputation and its historic significance, “Gugusse and the Automaton” has long held a fascination with science fiction fans, even though it was considered lost.

Library of Congress archive technician Courtney Holschuh examines a strip of film from George Méliès’ 1897 short “Gugusse and the Automaton,” which is thought to be the first film to feature what might be called a robot.

Years after inheriting the box of about 10 films, Bill McFarland drove from Grand Rapids to the Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Va., in September to donate the collection.

His great-grandfather, William Delisle Frisbee, was a Western Pennsylvania potato farmer and schoolteacher who moonlighted as a traveling showman, commuting by horse and buggy from town to town to screen some of the world’s first movies.

After Frisbee died in 1937, the films and his old projectors, as well as his diaries and other papers, were passed down through the generations.

“He talks about full houses, and rowdy houses, and canceled shows, and he went all the way to the Pennsylvania-Maryland line, and I think into Ohio as well,” McFarland said. “He made as much as $20 bucks a night, I see in his records, and sometimes he made $1.35 for the night.”

Méliès made some 500 short films, but only about 300 survive. Like many lost silent movies, negatives for most of his films were melted down for silver and celluloid during World War I.

Scorsese’s Film Foundation estimates that more than 90% of films made before 1929 have been lost forever, most due to intentional destruction. In the early days of cinema, film prints were deemed of little value past their original theatrical run. Also, the era’s prints were made of nitrate, which was both perishable and highly flammable.

“Gugusse and the Automaton” can be viewed in 4K on the Library of Congress’ website.