This beautifully stencil-coloured film is the “odd man out” among the six titles in this programme, as it’s earlier, French, and by a known director. Alfred Machin (1877-1929) made his first African films in 1908 for Pathé Frères, often involving hunting parties, such as Chasse à la panthère (1909), in which a ferocious panther is trapped and killed for its pelt. Happily, in La Chasse aux singes the relationship between hunter and prey is almost friendly, and while the captured simian is indeed deprived of his freedom, he’s kept as a companion, with no violence involved. The monkey appears as an inquisitive, playful prisoner, and the affection between man and beast is occasionally so marked that one might suspect Machin of using a tame animal. The title card is missing, and the footage was identified thanks to the Gaumont Pathé Archives online service. The provenance of the Norwegian print is unknown; the original nitrate is lost, but the title survived in an acetate negative made in 1988.

Tina Anckarman