Most animation fans know of Emile Cohl as a pioneering French animator of early works like FANTASMAGORIE, from 1908. He continued to produce animation through the beginning of the 1920s, and this example is a mixed live-action animated short that was released by Eclair.
A palmist has a client come in. After taking a print of his palm and finding it uninteresting, she has his take off his shoe and sock, and takes a print of his foot. Both of the prints are animated in the typical Cohl style, which is to say, a series of fantastical transformations, and although by this point, he was beginning to compete with the motion-based animation that the fledgling American animation studios were offering -- Bray, Raoul Barre -- Cohl offers a goodly bit of humor with his stout, hesitant actors, and the idea that the animation reveals their thoughts.
A palmist has a client come in. After taking a print of his palm and finding it uninteresting, she has his take off his shoe and sock, and takes a print of his foot. Both of the prints are animated in the typical Cohl style, which is to say, a series of fantastical transformations, and although by this point, he was beginning to compete with the motion-based animation that the fledgling American animation studios were offering -- Bray, Raoul Barre -- Cohl offers a goodly bit of humor with his stout, hesitant actors, and the idea that the animation reveals their thoughts.
