The Tyrant’s 8mm

I’ve been working on my reconstruction of the two missing episodes of The Reign of Terror.

My version uses a mixture of stills and video footage from the surviving episodes. It also includes the 8mm footage of an Australian fan who pointed their cine camera at their tv screen back whenever Australian tv showed it in the 60s.

And in dropping in a piece of this footage I noticed that the Lost in Time DVD (from where the clip is sourced) had it slightly wrong. Ian Chesterton wasn’t saying something about Jules Renan at all. My limited lipreading skills combined with the quality of the cinefilm told me the only discernible word was ‘cheese’.

Now, in this French tale it is possible that Ian was getting a bit fromage fixated, but unlikely.

So I played through the dialogue until I heard him say something about “Le Chien Gris” which sounds to me a lot like cheese.

"...except that, as I found Le Chien Gris, you found me."

It comes about 15m into episode four of The Reign of Terror.  I tried it, it fits perfectly with the soundtrack. Huzzah! One piece of silent film correctly positioned. Small victories.

My schoolboy french tells me that Chien is Dog, but I’m still no wiser on what Gris means.  Ah well.