Overview
- In 2025, archivists identified a deteriorating nitrate copy in the Library of Congress’s William DeLyle Frisbee Collection in Culpeper, Virginia, from reels donated by Bill McFarland of Michigan.
- The National Audio-Visual Conservation Center stabilized and scanned the brittle nitrate, enabling a full restoration of the previously lost title.
- The under‑one‑minute film is now available to watch online, with the Library posting a newly restored version that outlets report in 4K resolution.
- The short features a clown and an automaton realized through Méliès’s early trick‑film methods, including substitution splices and stop‑motion techniques.
- The release pushes back documented on‑screen depictions of a mechanical man prior to R.U.R. and Metropolis, with reporting noting a Star Film Company catalog entry (no. 111) that supports the film’s identification and provenance.