The Escaped Lunatic (1904)
This is one of the most exciting and at the same time one of the most laughable subjects ever made. A lunatic confined in a barred cell, labors under the delusion that he is the Emperor Napoleon. In the first scene we see him in an altercation with his keepers over the quality of food furnished him. The keepers set upon him and beat him unmercifully and leave him unconscious. He comes to and determines to escape. Wrenching a leg from a table he bursts the bar of a window, smashes the glass and crawls out. The next scene shows him dropping a distance of 30 feet to the ground below. He picks himself up and starts off at a run. The faces of the keepers appear at the cell window for an instant, but quickly they come running out of the main entrance to the asylum, and start in pursuit of the escaped lunatic. Then follows a series of thrilling and ludicrous chases through the mostly picturesque scenery. The lunatic is cornered on a bridge over a waterfall, but manages to overcome the keeper and hurls him into the rapids below. In another scene he crosses a torrent on a slender wire cable swinging loose above it. Time after time the lunatic succeeds in circumventing his keepers. Finally, however, he tires of the chase and is seen running back to the asylum. He leaps the 30 feet back to the window and when the keepers, all blown and covered with mud, rush into the cell, Napoleon I, is calmly reading a newspaper.
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| Filmmakers | Role |
|---|---|
| Wallace McCutcheon | Director |
| A.E. Weed | Cinematographer |
