The movie consists solely of a saber fight. Bernhardt plays a cross-gender Hamlet, and Pierre Magnier is her fellow duelist, Laertes. A few bystanders, in Rennaissance dress, stand off to the right of the screen, and in the background, next to a painted backdrop.
The Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre was a special pavilion at the 1900 Paris World's Fair which featured filmed performances presented with sound via wax cylinder recordings. Many of these short films were also presented in hand-tinted color. The performances ranged from theatre (Coquelin the eldest,...
Considered the first motion picture to employ both color and sound, the only film record ever made of the original star of Rostand's famous play performing a scene from his most famous role. It is accompanied by a sound-on-cylinder recording of Coquelin's voice reciting one of Cyrano's speeches.
