The Famous Box Trick

The Famous Box Trick (French: Illusions Fantasmagoriques; Star Film Catalogue no. 155.) is a 1898 French short black-and-white silent trick film, directed by Georges Méliès, featuring a stage magician who transforms one boy into two with the aid of an axe.

The Famous Box Trick
Screenshot from the film
Directed byGeorges Méliès
Release date
  • 1898 (1898)
CountryFrance
LanguageSilent

Synopsis

A stage magician conjures up a dove and places it in a box with a set of clothes. A boy appears from the box, and the magician divides him into two boys with an axe. The two boys squabble, and the magician transforms one into a paper tissue, which he shreds and places the other back in the box. The magician then destroys the box with a hammer to show the boy has vanished. The boy reappears and is transformed into flags. The magician then disappears in a puff of smoke, only to re-enter through a door to take his bow.

Production

At the time of filming The Famous Box Trick, Méliès had recently finished a series of complex "reconstructed newsreels" (staged recreations of current events) about the Spanish-American War. He then moved back towards trick films with this film and a handful of others, short magical sketches focusing on special effects made with variations of the substitution splice. The Famous Box Trick, with ten substitution splices in a single minute of action, may be the most complex of this group.[1] Méliès plays the magician in the film, which also uses pyrotechnics in its effects.[2]

The style of the film is highly theatrical, with camera tricks only beginning around halfway through, and particularly reminiscent of Méliès's earlier The Vanishing Lady (1896).[3]

References
  1. Rosen, Miriam (1987), "Méliès, Georges", in Wakeman, John (ed.), World Film Directors: Volume I, 1890–1945, New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, pp. 747–65 (here 752), ISBN 0-8242-0757-2
  2. Essai de reconstitution du catalogue français de la Star-Film; suivi d'une analyse catalographique des films de Georges Méliès recensés en France, Bois d'Arcy: Service des archives du film du Centre national de la cinématographie, 1981, p. 59, ISBN 2903053073
  3. Brooke, Michael (2008-05-20), "The Famous Box Trick", Georges Méliès (archived Filmjournal blog)
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