He_who_lurks First of all, this short isn't racist. I would agree with the reviewer who said it was all about color contrasts. Second of all, I have no idea why Melies titled this "Off to Bloomingdale Asylum". I mean, come on, all it is is some black guys transforming into white guys and back again. OH WAIT, IT'S THE AUDIENCE WHO ENDS UP AT THE ASYLUM AFTER WATCHING IT BECAUSE THEY THINK THEY'RE HALLUCINATING! YUCK YUCK YUCK!Okay, so that joke wasn't really very funny. Anyway, Melies doesn't appear to star anywhere in this one, odd because he mostly appears somewhere in these trick films. Is he one of the blackface minstrels? I dunno. As far as the story goes, it's just silly but has an interesting slapstick ending. The effects are good throughout.

Hitchcoc One could always consider the use of blackface as racist (it was), but I think Melies was looking for a black and white contrast, so as the clowns and the minstrels switch back and forth, it will be visually interesting. I don't suppose with things being what they were, Melies would ever consider using black actors. Of course, I don't know what the possibilities were in France. This is a bit less than some of his other films.

Horst in Translation ([email protected]) This one-minute film "L'omnibus des toqués blancs et noirs" may be considered racist because of the Blackfaces used in here, but I think these are too politically correct. Basically, this film only shows us what happens to stupid people, regardless which color. And color is a good keyword as Méliès proves here that, even without color in terms of film, it is very possibly to distinguish between all kinds of shades. This silent movie was made in the 20th century "already" by the famous French film pioneer and I would not count this among his best or worst works. Unfortunately, it's far more interesting visually than in terms of the story. As a whole, not recommended.

boblipton One of Melies' trick films, this one actually has a bit of surrealism and psychology behind it as it purports to show the world according to minds of some madmen being transported off to the madhouse -- it was labeled as Bedlam in Britain and the then well-known Bloomingdale Asylum when distributed in the U.S. The whole thing is played for speed and laughs, of course, as the asylum ambulance is drawn by a chimera and the patients change and vanish in the blink of an eye. But if the modern viewpoint of how we perceive the mad is vastly different from that offered in this Melies piece, surely one can not hope to expect any depth in a piece that is on the screen for perhaps twenty seconds. For its time and place is is brilliant and more than a century later it is still a dazzling piece of film-making.