A magic show performed by Méliès himself which is made truly magical by his use of stop cuts and substitutions. Pretty cool that he figured out this early form of special effect, and what it could be used for. Even for such a simple five minute short, there is such irreverence here, as he pulls a large potted plant out of his assistant's backside for goodness sake. He also yanks the ornate costume off an Egyptian(?) man and presto! A skeleton appears and waves his arms and legs about. He puts scholarly robes around a sculpted bust and voila! A man resembling Santa begins walking about, and then Méliès proceeds to dismember him(!) with a giant mallet. Man, that was rather dark! I loved it. Less successful (and I have to believe this was true even at the time) was the bat being floated about by a wire visible against the dark background. Fun stuff though.
Review of Whimsical Illusions
