Escamotage d'une dame au théâtre Robert Houdin

The early cinema must have been so much fun for audiences. In this one, a magician brings out a woman, sits her down in a chair, throws a scarf over her, and she disappears. He again puts the scarf down and she transforms into a human skeleton. This little thing is a first in special effects. There are some moments that don't work, but all in all, it functions pretty well.

'Concealment of a Lady at the House of Robert-Houdin' is one of the early 'trick' films of Georges Méliès. In this case, his choice of trick is a questionable one, as here Méliès is merely reproducing (on film) a conjuror's illusion which Robert-Houdin and many other magicians had done live in their stage acts ... so, Méliès is using a camera trick to achieve what the conjurors achieved with stagecraft. Later, Méliès's better and more complicated trick films offered feats which could only be done via camera wizardry ... thus beating the stage illusionists at their own game.

An elegant corseted lady is seated in a chair on the stage. Méliès, dressed in evening attire, drapes a cloth over her, then whisks it away. Hey presto! The lady has been transformed into a skeleton.

For modern audiences, accustomed to 'Bewitched' and such, it's almost laughably obvious that Méliès achieves his effect with a simple jump cut. Unfortunately, Méliès's trickery is cruder and more obvious than it needed to be -- even by 1896 standards -- because the skeleton seated in the chair is about three inches taller than the woman it has replaced. I suspect that, even in 1896, audiences realised that Méliès had substituted the skeleton for the lady, rather than whisked away her clothing and her flesh to leave her own skeleton remaining.

This film's title may have been clear in the 19th century, but now wants some explanation. Robert-Houdin was a legendary French stage magician of the Victorian era. (As I write this, Michael Douglas is planning to star in 'Smoke and Mirrors', based on a true incident in Robert-Houdin's career.) Harry Houdini adapted his own stage name in honour of Robert-Houdin. As a boy, Georges Méliès attended performances of stage magic at Theatre Robert-Houdin, the magician's exhibition hall in Paris. After Robert-Houdin's death, the adult Méliès bought the magician's theatre and adapted it as the studio in which he filmed his trick movies. Quite conveniently, Theatre Robert-Houdin was already fitted with trap doors and other trickery which Méliès put to good use.

More for its historic value than for its entertainment value or the level of its conjuring, I'll rate this early film 8 out of 10.

Robert Houdin was a French magician and illusionist. He doesn't appear in this early experiment, but his name is loaned to one of the first illusions on film provided by Georges Melies. Melies himself said that this was the first film in which he used stop motion - a process in which illusions could be performed by stopping his camera, rearranging the set, and then starting the camera again, to give the illusion that items and people have either appeared or disappeared.

In this film, an elegantly dressed woman sits in a chair while the magician drapes her with a shroud. The magician removes the shroud and the woman has disappeared. He makes a few gestures and voila! He returns - a skeleton??? Oh the horror!. So he brings the shroud back into the act, covers the skeleton, and the entire woman and her clothes are recovered. Wherever the woman went, the clothes MUST follow! After all this is literally the Victorian era even though it is France.

The magician was played by Georges Melies himself, and the woman was played by Jehanne d'Alcy. D'alcy appeared in numerous Melies films over the years, having left the theater to devote herself to film acting, one of the first actors to do this. The two got married, but oddly not until 1925 when D'Alcy was 60 and Melies was 64. They were married until his death in 1938.

Vanishing Lady, The (1896)

*** (out of 4)

aka Escamotage de'une dame chez Robert-Houdin

A magician (played by Melies) brings a woman out on stage and makes her disappear and then he puts a skeleton in a chair and turns it back into the woman. This is a pretty entertaining little film, which shows various things that the director would go onto work with in the future. Of course, the magic scene has always been a big part of the director's career and the trick done here is very nice, although it's easy to spot the edit. The use of a skeleton would also be used countless times by the director in future films. The trick lasts just over a minute and will certainly keep a smile on your face.

Méliès' "Escamotage d'une dame au théâtre Robert Houdin" (1896) or "The Vanishing Lady" is an early example of trick cinematography, utilizing his renowned and often-used technique of stopping the camera mid-scene and altering the mise en scène. As such, it's highly entertaining, although if you delve deeper into Méliès' films you'll soon become very familiar with this technique and its possible variations.

I hope you read the IMDb comment "Magic and Presentation" (January 27th, 2008) by Cineanalyst, where the history behind the French title is well explained. Knowing the historical background isn't mere trivia here but might actually help you appreciate the film more.

Films are a magic show, and it's good to revisit these older films that explicitly remind us lest we forget.