User Reviews

Up-To-Date Spiritualism (1900)

*** (out of 4)

aka Spiritisme abracadabrant

A man (once again played by Melies) goes into a haunted room to try and make it better but soon the room is playing tricks on him. This film runs just over a minute and once again Melies fills the entire time with one trick after another. The highlight of the movie is the man's attempt to take his hat off but it keeps coming back on his head. The special effects in the film are top notch and you really can't see any of the edits making them happen. This film certainly isn't anything original from the director but all the tricks are seen in a new way, which makes them come off very fresh.

Melies most frequently imitated piece -- including by him -- was his L'AUBERGE MYSTERIEUSE. Here, wearing a comic outfit, he enters a room, to be devilled by unseen spirits which move things around, steal his hat and generally make him want to leave the room. It's all done with Melies' usual flair and good humor and if it's only a variation, it's a wonderful one.

This is one of the many previously lost or infrequently seen Melies pictures that have been made available by Serge Bromberg, David Shepherd and a myriad of other hands in the newly issued DVD set GEORGES MELIES: FIRST WIZARD OF CINEMA. Required viewing for anyone interested in the history of movies ..... and a lot of fun.

This quick moving little feature involve a man with a hat and a need to get rid of it. No matter how many things he does to the hat, it always ends up on his head. That also goes for the jacket. The fun is in the furious effort of George Melieus, who plays the man, uses to get rid of the hat. He was a physically gifted comedian who is not really known for his acting gifts. Good effort.

Comedic elements were always a big part of Melies' persona and his creations and the funniest he's ever been was in his 1900's "Crazy spiritualism" (Spiritisme abracadabrant), which happened to be a remake of his own movie from a couple of weeks before - definitely not one of the first remakes but Georges probably invented those too - and marked the first use of a visual gag in a movie through another editing effect Georges was known for perfecting - called stop-motion substitution. In this short a man tries to undress himself but the clothes keep popping up back on his body again and again and you just can't help but rolling with laughter at the poor man's angry attempts to take anything off of him.

Georges Melies was a unique person, a one in a million talent, a great entertainer and a fine artist and he deserves all the credit and all the recognition he ought to have had in his days as he shaped the way motion pictures are being made to this day.