A short, silent film starring John P. Brawn as the titular fiend, who having gorged himself on Welsh Rarebit — melted cheese on toast — stumbles to bed via a rather hallucinatory encounter with a lamp post and falls into a troubled sleep. Inaugurated by a trio of pickaxe-wielding demons, his subsequent cheese-fuelled dream involves an inelegant flight through his window and over an urban nightscape, finally ending with a skewering by his pyjamas on a weather vane. The film features some pioneering special effects including a fully spinning sky and the aforementioned demons.
The sequence is based on a comic strip by Winsor McCay, alias “Silas”. Dream of the Rarebit Fiend was McCay’s longest running comic, totalling over 300 episodes more than his better known Little Nemo.
The sequence is based on a comic strip by Winsor McCay, alias “Silas”. Dream of the Rarebit Fiend was McCay’s longest running comic, totalling over 300 episodes more than his better known Little Nemo.
Category
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Short film