The Cavalier's Dream
About The Cavalier's Dream
A cavalier sleeps at an empty table. An old witch knocks three times and vanishes. He wakes to a feast. Mephistopheles appears. The witch changes into a young woman. The substitutions are cut in without a fade.
Cast & crew
More about The Cavalier's Dream
Charles Musser, cited on Wikipedia, says the film was likely shot in September or October 1898 by Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton at American Vitagraph's Manhattan rooftop studio, while the company was an Edison licensee. It is sometimes credited to Edwin S. Porter. Porter's first Edison films date from 1901. Wikidata names Porter as director and Edison Studios as distributor. The catalog names Blackton.
Themes
Technique
Figures appear and change by stop-substitution: the witch, the feast, Mephistopheles, and the young woman.
Preservation
The Library of Congress has held a copy since 1958. A 2017 scan of the 16mm was published as a 2K file.
Notes
- The short was not widely circulated when it was new.
- The Library of Congress preserved a copy in 1958, scanned the 16mm in 2017, and a 2K file was put on the Internet Archive.
Scenes
- The witch raps three times and is gone.
- The empty table is suddenly a feast, and the witch is a young woman.
Also available
- Library of Congress
