Escamotage d'une dame au théâtre Robert Houdin

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.

'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.

Magician and filmmaker Georges Melies enters stage right and introduces fashionably dressed Jeanne d'Alcy. He puts a newspaper on the floor. On the newspaper, Mr. Melies places a chair. He invites Ms. D'Alcy, who is standing patiently, to sit on the chair. She complies comfortably and begins to fan herself. Melies throws a cloth over the woman. A slip second later, he removes the cloth and the woman has disappeared. But bringing her back is not a simple as it looks. In the end, the cast takes a bow. Forgetting his chair enables Melies to take a curtain call. He deserves one; this short film is never boring.

****** Escamotage d'une dame au theatre Robert Houdin (1896) Georges Melies ~ Georges Melies, Jeanne d'Alcy

Things happened fast in the first few years of film - less than a couple of years before, the Lumiere brothers showed their first film - workers leaving their factory, one minute's worth - at the Societe d'Encouragement a l'Industrie Nationale. In late 1896, George Melies made this film, which quite simply shows a woman changing into a skeleton & back again. He used stop action of course, which every kid with a video camera has done by now, but at the time it was sensational.

Melies made his name & fame with such camera tricks in the cinema's early days - but whether he was the first to do the stop-frame thing is contested, as an Englishman named G.A. Smith was experimenting with the same things at the same time.

I still think, though, this particular trick is kinda neat.

"Escamotage d'une dame au théâtre Robert Houdin" is a very short and simple film. Folks today might no doubt think little of it. But back in 1896, folks were wowed by the film and it spurred actor/director Georges Méliès to make more films like it as well as expand on the tricks he used in this one.

Méliès was a magician before he became a filmmaker. It's obvious in this one as he plays a magician in the film and makes his assistant disappear and then turn into a skeleton. It's all done simply by stopping the camera and restarting it...but the use of edits like this baffled folks in the day and the film deserves kudos for its innovation.