Ballet Mécanique

Fernand Léger and Dudley Murphy, Paris, 1924. Fifteen minutes: Kiki de Montparnasse's eyes and mouth, a washerwoman on stairs in a loop, pistons, bottles, a Chaplin puppet. Léger had designed a laboratory for L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine and wanted film to move the way his tubes painted. The Cinémathèque française lists it at about 15 minutes, restored. George Antheil's score, written for the same title, did not meet the picture until later. A machine dance without a plot to excuse it.