View source for The Bridegroom's Dilemma

{{Infobox film
| name           = The Bridegroom's Dilemma
| image          =
| alt            =
| caption        =
| director       = [[Georges Méliès]]
| based_on       = <!-- {{Based on|title of the original work|creator of the original work|additional creator(s), if necessary}} -->
| starring       = {{ubl|Georges Méliès|Mlle. Barral}}
| studio         = [[Star Film Company]]
| distributor    = <!-- or: | distributors = -->
| released       = {{Film date|df=yes/no|1899||||}}
| runtime        =
| country        = France
| language       = Silent
}}
'''''The Bridegroom's Dilemma''''' ({{langx|fr|'''Le Coucher de la mariée ou Triste nuit de noces'''}}) was an 1899 French [[short film|short]] [[silent film|silent]] [[comedy film]] by [[Georges Méliès]]. It was sold by Méliès's [[Star Film Company]] and is numbered 177–178 in its catalogues, where it is advertised as a ''scène comique''.<ref name=MM>{{citation|last=Malthête|first=Jacques|last2=Mannoni|first2=Laurent|title=L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès|year=2008|publication-place=Paris|publisher=Éditions de La Martinière|isbn=9782732437323|page=94}}</ref>
A surviving production photograph shows Méliès as the elderly beau in the film. Historian [[Georges Sadoul]], from available evidence, believed the young woman to be Mademoiselle Barral, who starred as Cinderella in Méliès's [[Cinderella (1899 film)|film of the same name]] later that year.<ref name=MM/> The film is a ''coucher'' ([[bedroom farce]]) in a popular style; several early filmmakers made similar farces, notably one from [[Eugène Pirou]] (''[[Le Coucher de la Mariée]]'', 1896) and at least three from [[Pathé]] (1901, 1904, and 1907).<ref name=MM/>
The complete film is currently presumed [[lost film|lost]].<ref name=MM/> However, a [[flipbook]] published by Léon Beaulieu in the late 1890s, showing one woman helping another undress for bed before a gentleman in evening dress enters the bedroom, was rediscovered in the 2010s and has been tentatively identified as a fragment of the film.<ref>{{citation|title=Léon Beaulieu's Pocket Cinematograph|first1=Thierry|last1=Lecointe|first2=Robert|last2=Byrne|publisher=[[San Francisco Silent Film Festival]]|work=silentfilm.org|date=2019|url=https://silentfilm.org/leon-beaulieus-pocket-cinematograph/|access-date=25 April 2020}}</ref><ref name=SFSFF>{{citation|title=Léon Beaulieu Flipbooks|author=[[San Francisco Silent Film Festival]]|work=silentfilm.org|date=2019|url=https://silentfilm.org/preservation/flipbooks/|access-date=25 April 2020}}</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
* {{IMDb title|0224804}}
* [https://vimeo.com/410434775 Flipbook] on [[Vimeo]], tentatively identified as a fragment of ''The Bridegroom's Dilemma''
{{Georges Méliès}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bridegroom's Dilemma}}
[[Category:1890s French films]]
[[Category:French black-and-white films]]
[[Category:Films directed by Georges Méliès]]
[[Category:French silent short films]]
[[Category:1899 short films]]