I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Some reviewers have been saying that this short was done by Ferdinand Zecca, but it was really by Segundo de Chomon. No way could Zecca whip up such a fantastic story, and he definitely couldn't have pulled off such amazing special effects. No, this was certainly by Chomon.The story is about an Arab who sees this beetle climbing on a wall, and grabs it, which is where he made his mistake. Unfortunately this suffers with slow-paced action, but when the effects get started they make it worth seeing. Overall it's a nice film, but watching a guy crawling on the floor and gesturing for the first 1/3 of the film is kinda dumb. The main part with the beetle superimposed in mid air with the pinks flashing onscreen is definitely the highlight.

One of those early silent shorts that gets in and gets out very quickly, in under 3 minutes, and involves a great amount of magic, and the composition is all in one long shot (which is part of the magic part since it involves dissolves and a lot of super-impositions and other early goodies of the cinematic trade). In this case some dude is skulking around, a beetle is crawling on the wall, and then the beetle turns into a woman! Holy Beatles, Batman! It's mostly about showing off color - yes, this is one of the early examples of using color in a silent film, albeit it's scattered - but most notably is the ending, which is actually rather messed up. I know that's not a very articulate way of describing it, but when you watch what happens with this Skulking Man who may or may not have somehow offended this Beetle Woman (who also returns with two, uh, female assistants), you'll likely do as I do and yell out "WHOA!" at what happens to this guy. Not a lot really *happens* in this short, but what does counts.

This is another trick photography in the style of Georges Melies - although this time made by Ferdinand Zecca for Pathe. Most imitations of Melies were blatant copies with little attempt at individuality on the part of those doing the copying, but Zecca was a talented filmmaker in his own right and this fantasy stands up to comparison with most of Melies' work. The story, such as it is, is a little confusing, but it's not the story that's important - it's the special effects and the use of stencil-coloured film. the colour effects are quite spectacular and help to set this apart from more run of the mill efforts.

Weird, creative, and colorful, the visuals in "The Golden Beetle" are as spectacular as anything made in the early years of cinema. This had to have taken both a lot of skill and a lot of work to plan and execute. It uses several forms of trick photography, and also has lavish color produced by the old laborious process of hand-tinting each frame. The results are worth it, and it's still entertaining to watch over 90 years later. Much of the time, the succession of strange images is almost seamless, and there is not a dull moment. The actual story, though simple, is also rather amusing in itself.