This ensemble is made up of 5 short silent films, thrown onto the film like sketches. NB. The film is noted as "silent", but it is to be projected with sound. The sound is the characteristic noise of the optical sound track of a silent film in a 16mm projector.
This ensemble is made up of 5 short silent films, thrown onto the film like sketches. NB. The film is noted as "silent", but it is to be projected with sound. The sound is the characteristic noise of the optical sound track of a silent film in a 16mm projector.
The background of this picture represents a scene along the beautiful river Seine in Paris. A gentleman enters, and taking a blackboard from the side of the picture, he draws on it a sketch of a novelist. Then, standing in the centre, he causes the living features of his sketch to appear in the place of his own, which is utterly devoid of whiskers. The change is made so mysteriously that the eye cannot notice it until one sees quite another person in the place of the first. Again another sketch is shown on the board, this one being that of a miser; then an English cockney; a comic character; a French policeman, and last of all, the grinning visage of Mephistopheles. It is almost impossible to give this film a more definite description; suffice it to say that it is something entirely new in motion pictures and is sure to please. (Méliès Catalog)
Félicien Trewey uses a basic prop to create comical hats and their accompanying caricatures.
A weary traveler stops at an inn along the way to get a good night's sleep, but his rest is interrupted by odd happenings when he gets to his room--beds vanishing and re-appearing, candles exploding, pants flying through the air and his shoes walking away by themselves.
Two impish clowns construct a magic lantern. They prop it up at an angle, and use it to project pictures onto a wall. When the picture show ends, they open up the lantern to reveal a group of dancing girls inside - and this is only the first of the indications that this lantern really is magical.
King of the slack wire. His daring feats of balancing as he performs his thrilling feats in midair show that he is perfectly at home.
The leader of a marching band demonstrates an unusual way of writing music.
Three Chaplin silent comedies "A Dog's Life", "Shoulder Arms", and "The Pilgrim" are strung together to form a single feature length film. Chaplin provides new music, narration, and a small amount of new connecting material. "Shoulder Arms" is now described as taking place in a time before "the atom bomb".
The film is a panorama shot-scene lasting just under a minute. The panorama film, as coined by Lumière, is a moving-camera shot--usually accomplished by placing the camera on a moving transport, such as a boat or train.
A skeleton dances joyously, often collapsing into a heap of bones and quickly putting itself back together.
Georges Méliès makes a woman disappear, then reappear.