The Delights of Automobiling (1900) User Reviews (10)

The Camera Effects & Macabre Humor Work Pretty Well

[Snow Leopard · 12 May 2004]

Both the camera effects and the rather macabre sense of humor work pretty well in this short feature about the "Explosion of a Motor Car". Its original viewers were probably most interested in the special camera effects. These might not seem like anything special now, but in a few of these very old films they are really no less convincing than some of the computer-generated images that are so overused at the present time.

Beyond the camera tricks, there are some amusing moments from the policeman who comes to survey the scene. The morbid humor in his bureaucratic, officious response to the situation is amusing in itself, and it forms a contrast with the more dramatic parts of the action. Because of that, this little feature has a comic balance that you often don't see in movies of its kind that have been made more recently. It's also always interesting to see movies about automobiles that were made in the days when both cars and movies were still novelties.

A funny tragedy

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 20 July 2015]

Everything seems so harmless early on in this black-and-white silent short film, but things take a turn for the worse quickly. A car explodes. And the people in it die. There is something pretty hilarious though to the way that body-parts and clothes are falling from the sky down to to the police officer who is definitely not able to deal with the situation. In a way, you could call this very short film by British filmmaking pioneer Cecil M. Hepworth the mother of all action movies. 115 years later and it's not a real action movies if there aren't any explosions in there. The more the better and preferably with outstanding visual effects. But apart from the strange humor in here, there is nothing really memorable about it.

Shocking!

[addick-2 · 8/10 · 1 March 2002]

Gruesome early example of what can only be described as black humor. A car explodes causing a grizzly precipitation of body parts onto a passing policeman. Only one scene and one camera angle but an interesting early experimentation with camera effects and an attempt to set the scene with the use of extras crossing the road in front of the car before it explodes. The ending, as the policeman sorts through the body parts, has a surreal, pythonesque feel about it.

Humor way ahead of its time.

[mkilmer · 10/10 · 27 November 2006]

I just saw EXPLOSION OF A MOTOR CAR (1900) with several other Hepworth shorts, and it struck me as… well, the term is silly. In a good way.

A single shot shows a dirt road with a few pedestrians and passersby. Along comes an old motor car filled with people all dressed up in period gear: laughing, smiling, waving. The car explodes, the people disappear. I wondered if it were a "poof, they're gone" incident, when along came what might in a decade and a half be a Keystone Cop, looking to the sky? At what? Well, the body parts begin to fall: a leg, an arm, a torso. The cop catalogues the parts he finds then decides to put the parts in piles, one for each victim.

This is all in one shot, primitive cinema, but it works perfectly. The term "Pythonesque" used in another comment here is appropriate, because the cop could very easily have been Graham Chapman as Police Constable Pam Am.

It is actually neither shocking nor grotesque, I think, as there is no blood and the body parts are obviously made of fabric and stuffed. It's great to see that the pioneers were over six decades ahead of their time with this humor. (See also Hepworth's THE FATAL SNEEZE.)

The first gore film?

[reptilicus · 22 October 2003]

This is a case of where the title is also the plot description. Cecil Hepworth borrows a technique from George Melies for this short comedy (?) showing the instability of the modern motorcar. A couple is out for a drive in their car when it suddenly blows up! The explosion is accomplished by a jumpcut where the car disappears and then a cloud of white smoke and a pile of debris takes its place. A policeman who was strolling by looks upward and has to dodge a rain of severed body parts! Remembering his duty, the constable tries to sort out of grim offal, placing the female limbs in one pile and the male limbs in another. Interestingly the heads never make it back to Earth. You have to laugh at this one, you cannot dwell on how grim the subject matter is. Take it as a comic blackout skit and it is quite funny.

A blood-feast,...1900 style

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 14 September 2006]

This is a very amusing film for 1900, though I'm sure today a lot of people wouldn't be all that impressed. But, compared to the very short and terribly mundane films of the early years of cinema, this is a great and creative and disgusting film! A family is seen driving down the road and the car suddenly blows up! The special effect is only okay, but it's very amusing when a cop shows up and pulls out a telescope to see the bodies of the victims flying in the air! Then, he jumps out of the way as body parts come raining down on him! And then, very oddly, the cop begins to piece the bodies back together like he has some obsessive-compulsive need to organize the carnage!! It's not at all bloody, really and is pretty funny--but for 1900, it must have shocked the audiences! By the way, it would have been even funnier if AFTER the cop arranged the body parts that they suddenly became whole live people and they got up and walked off--to the cop's amazement!

Early black humour

[briancham1994 · 9/10 · 19 November 2020]

This is a very early version of black humour and it works just as well as any of today's jokes. It's a short and sweet film about the titular explosion of a motor car. The special effects were quite impressive for the time and really contribute to the absurdity of the situation.

Surprisingly darkly comic

[bob the moo · 21 April 2007]

As the title suggest, this short is based around a car blowing up. Those expecting modern effects will be amused to see how this explosion is achieved (with a simple cut where the car is replaced with a pile of metal and wheels) however it is not the effects that are memorable. Rather what is memorable is the dark edge to this early film. The thing to remember is that the motor car was hardly a well established and taken-of-granted device that it is today but that it would have still had an element of mistrust in the way some older people still view computers today.

So to have this explode killing the passengers is one thing but the film goes beyond that with the macabre spectacle of the policeman picking his way through falling body parts, trying to inventory and perhaps put them back in the correct pile. It is not really funny although it is slightly comic but for me it was more fascinating to see such a thing in a film this old. Not brilliant of course but an interesting bit of cinema history.

A very good attempt for 1901

[Tornado_Sam · 20 September 2017]

If any of you have seen R. W. Paul's "Extraordinary Cab Accident" then this short film might remind you of that one. Both are black comedies, with some dark humor involved. I have to say of the two shorts I thought "Extraordinary Cab Accident" was the weaker of the two, though this one still isn't all that better but for 1900 it's actually pretty good.

The film is by the British filmmaker Cecil Hepworth, who is more chiefly known for his "Rescued by Rover" from 1905. It is a trick film which uses Georges Melies's trick technique of substitution splicing by stopping the camera and changing the arrangement of the setting. We see a car coming down the road with some people who are obviously showing off for the camera. But all of a sudden the whole car explodes 9hence the title), due to the use of substitution splicing. To carry the joke even further a policeman steps into the picture and sorts out the body parts that begin to fall from the sky, which can only be described as macabre. It was probably very convincing for the time, but nowadays it's easy to see the body parts are just fabric and stuffing.

While Georges Melies had carried out better illusions by this time, this film tells a story AND uses the effects to tell it. So, I suppose this Hepworth movie is actually more involved than Melies's stuff.

The First Body Count Film?

[Michael_Elliott · 5 August 2015]

Explosion of a Motor Car (1900)

**** (out of 4)

If you're a fan of these early films then you know that the majority of them are rather safe all around. That's certainly not the case for this Edison film that has the camera set up at the end of the road when we notice a car driving towards it. Once the car is close to the frame it blows up killing people people in it. We then see their clothing and body parts fall to the ground as a policeman watches.

EXPLOSION OF A MOTOR CAR is a pretty wacky early film that would even keep modern viewers entertained. There's really nothing overly special here, meaning that this film certainly didn't change movie history but at the same time it's rather violence and silly at the same time. It's certainly worth watching at least once and the laughs you get will probably have you going for a repeat viewing.