LA GRÈVE DES BONNES (FR 1906)
regia/dir: Charles-Lucien Lépine. scen: André Heuzé. photog, spec. eff: Segundo de Chomón. cast: ?. prod: Pathé. copia/copy: 35mm, 132 m. [orig. 140 m.], 7′ (16 fps); did./titles: FRA. fonte/source: CNC – Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, Bois d’Arcy.

LÉONTINE, ENFANT TERRIBLE (FR 1911)
regia/dir: ?. cast: ? (Léontine). prod: Pathé. copia/copy: DCP, [orig. 125 m.], ??’; did./titles: FRA. fonte/source: Gaumont Pathé Archives, Saint-Ouen, Paris.

ZOÉ ET LE PARAPLUIE MIRACULEUX (FR 1913)
regia/dir: ?. cast: Little Chrysia (Zoé). prod: Pathé Comica. copia/copy: DCP, 4’11”  (da/from 35mm, orig. 115 m.); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam.
 
ROSALIE A LA MALADIE DU SOMMEIL (FR 1911)
regia/dir: Roméo Bosetti. cast: Sarah Duhamel (Rosalie). prod: Pathé Comica. copia/copy: DCP, 4’45” (da/from 35mm, orig. 185 m.); did./titles: NLD?. fonte/source: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam.

MADAME A DES ENVIES (FR 1907)
regia/dir: Alice Guy. cast: ?. prod: Pathé. uscita/rel: 27.12.1907. copia/copy: incompl., 35mm, 276 ft. [84 m. (orig.130 m.)], 4′ (18 fps); senza did./no titles. fonte/source: BFI National Archive, London. 

LA FUREUR DE MME. PLUMETTE (De sterke mevrouw Plumette) (FR 1912)
regia/dir: ?. cast: Ellen Lowe (cameriera/maid). prod: Eclipse. copia/copy: 35mm, 112 m., 5’30” (18 fps); did./titles: NLD. fonte/source: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam (Desmet Collection).

NON! TU NE SORTIRAS PAS SANS MOI! (Toch d’r zin) (FR 1911)
regia/dir: Jean Durand. cast: ?. prod: Gaumont. première: 22.12.1911. uscita/rel: 02.02.1912. copia/copy: 35mm, 83.5 m. [orig. 107 m.], 4′ (18 fps); did./titles: NLD. fonte/source: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam (Desmet Collection).

CUNÉGONDE FEMME-CRAMPON (Cunegonde wil niet dat haar man alleen uitgaat) (FR 1912)
regia/dir: ?. cast: Little Chrysia (Cunégonde). prod: Lux. copia/copy: 35mm, 170 m. [orig. 177 m.], 9′ (18 fps); did./titles: NLD. fonte/source: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam (Desmet Collection).

WEM GEHÖRT DAS KIND? [Whose Child Is It?]  (DE 1910)
regia/dir: Gebhard Schätzler-Perasini. photog: Guido Seeber. cast: Rosa Porten, Henny Porten. prod: Deutsche Bioscop GmbH, Berlin. première: 10.12.1910. copia/copy: DCP, 8′ (da/from 35mm); did./titles: GER. fonte/source: Deutsche Kinemathek, Berlin.

LÉONTINE EN VACANCES (FR 1910)
regia/dir: Roméo Bosetti. scen: Z. Rollini. cast: ? (Léontine). prod: Pathé. copia/copy: did./titles: FRA. fonte/source: Gaumont Pathé Archives, Saint-Ouen, Paris.

LA PEUR DES OMBRES (De vrees voor schaduwen) (FR 1911)
regia/dir: ?. cast: ?. prod: Pathé Nizza. copia/copy: 35mm, 80.4 m. [orig. 90 m.], 4′ (18 fps); did./titles: NLD. fonte/source: EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam (Desmet Collection).

“Empire abroad entails tyranny at home,” argued the 20th-century political philosopher Hannah Arendt. Colonial rivalries among a handful of European nation-states goaded the entire world into catastrophic, senseless war in 1914 and recoiled disastrously on the home front. Nasty Women defied these patriarchal power dynamics, further paving the way for the political resistance that would help subvert fascism’s attempts to inflict colonialist techniques of domination on the domestic population in the 1930s. The films in this program, “Tyranny at Home,” reveal Nasty Women seizing the reins of institutional power and exposing the absurd illogic of the entire system.
La Grève des bonnes (1906) depicts a female workers’ strike that spills out into the streets, wreaking havoc from the private kitchen to the public sphere. Léontine, enfant terrible (1911) escalates the goal-oriented labor strike to total anti-capitalist anarchy. We still do not know the identity of the remarkable actress who played Léontine/Betty in this popular comic series (which spanned about 21 episodes from 1910-1912). Evicted from her home for being a menace, Léontine enlists her favorite weapon (a piece of string) to unleash chaos among the petite bourgeoisie and local trade workers, climaxing in an explosive finale of fireworks that go off in the plumbing. Next, Zoé (played by Little Chrysia, who we’ll later see as Cunégonde) raises Cain with an enchanted umbrella that she steals from a stage magician. The umbrella can make any object multiply in absurd over-abundance, to invoke Marx and Engels, like a capitalist “sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.” Unlike Zoé, who is hyper-productive, Rosalie lacks her usual gusto because she has “sleeping sickness.” Starring the fabulous Sarah Duhamel who headlined as both Rosalie (1911-1912) and Pétronille (1912-1916), this episode also features a live marching band that fails to stir Rosalie from her lethargic slumber! (Probably she is just tired from exhaustion and overwork.)
Alice Guy  – prolific filmmaker and subject of the recent documentary Be Natural – terrorizes the polis with her maternity cravings in Madame a des envies (1907), which include pickled herring, sweet lollipops, and potent absinthe. More than hungry, Madame Plumette is absolutely furious. La Fureur de Mme. Plumette (1912) opens with a sight gag about menstruation but unfolds as a hilarious celebration of unrepressed female anger. Wives continue to play the roles of domestic tyrant in Non! Tu ne sortira pas sans moi! (1911) and Cunégonde femme-crampon (1912). Non! features a male actor in drag as the rebellious housewife. In contrast, Cunégonde flips the script by forbidding her husband to go out alone. Thanks to the brilliant archival sleuthing of Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi, we now know that Cunégonde was played by Little Chrysia, who starred in about 24 episodes of this series from 1911-1913 and also worked as a traveling circus performer in the U.K. and France.
Crossing the border to Germany, Wem gehört das Kind? (1910) looks at the enemy within, asking whether two Nasty Women can really trust one another? A faithful husband finds a lost child in the woods, triggering a sequence of scandalous misperceptions for his wife (Rosa Porten) and his sister (Henny Porten). We then check in with another migratory child, Léontine, who is being “rewarded” for her high marks at school with a vacation to her aunt and uncle’s retreat in the countryside. In Léontine en vacances (1910), Léontine does what she does best: inflict total chaos and anarchy on everyone around her – levitating the pots and pans to terrorize the cooks and then making a messy feast of some sausage and grapes. The unidentified actress who played Léontine also has a cameo in La Peur des ombres (1911), which parodies a D. W. Griffith race-to-the-rescue film with some innovative shadow play and rather suspicious silhouettes.

Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak