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.

L'omnibus des toqués ou Blancs et Noirs (1901) ** 1/2 (out of 4) aka Off to Bloomingdale Asylum This French film from Georges Melies has to be one of the earliest examples of a minstrel show. Four white men get out of a carriage and when they kick each other they then turn to black men. This little "trick" happens for about a minute and then the film is over. The subject matter is certainly going to offend many people today but there's certainly no question that the overall tone wasn't meant to be harmful as this certainly isn't in the same league as something like THE WATERMELON CONTEST. The special effect of seeing the men transform from black to white and then back again really doesn't look all that great and especially when you compare it to the other types of tricks that Melies was doing at this point in his career. The edits are all obviously done but then again you might not have noticed as much had the story been a bit better.

I love the films of Georges Méliès. He created so many great techniques and his movies were the best things being created at the time. So, while they seem a bit quaint today, back in 1901, it was pretty hot stuff--though this film isn't quite as fresh as some of his earlier films. And, while it will no doubt ruffle a few feathers today, you'll possibly be shocked at all the actors in black-face.A bizarre looking carriage arrives on a city street. Out pop four harlequins who dance about...and then the weird stuff begins. Using stop-motion, they appear to turn from very white to black men (of the minstrel variety) just by hitting or kicking each other. This goes back and forth for a bit until the remaining guy does what anyone would in this situation...he explodes. Goofy stuff...but entertaining.

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.