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Library of Congress Puts Newly Found 1897 Méliès Short Online as Possible First Robot on Film

The reel surfaced in a Michigan family’s donation from a traveling showman’s collection.

Image
A strip of film from George Méliès’ 1897 short “Gugusse and the Automaton,” which is thought to be the first film to feature what might be called a robot.
Library of Congress archive technician Courtney Holschuh examines a strip of film from George Méliès’ 1897 short “Gugusse and the Automaton,” which is thought to be the first film to feature what might be called a robot.
Still from the long lost 1897 film Gugusse et l'Automate (Gugusse and the automaton) by Georges Méliès. Image: Library of Congress

Overview

  • Archivists identified the 45‑second Georges Méliès short, Gugusse and the Automaton, in a box of deteriorated nitrate reels donated by Bill McFarland of Grand Rapids.
  • Technicians stabilized the fragile multi‑generation duplicate and produced a 4K scan now available on the Library of Congress website.
  • Library experts say the piece may be the earliest known cinematic depiction of a robot or automaton, inviting renewed scholarly review of early sci‑fi on film.
  • The find revives a title long presumed lost, reflecting how early exhibition and nitrate decay erased much of Méliès’s output and other silent‑era works.
  • The donation also included Méliès’s The Fat and Lean Wrestling Match (1900) and fragments of an early Edison film, underscoring the historical breadth of the trove.