The Enchanted Sedan Chair
About The Enchanted Sedan Chair
Against a rocky backdrop, a magician pulls costumes out of an empty glass box and, with an assistant, turns them into a couple in eighteenth-century dress. Two footmen bring a sedan chair. Under a shawl and the chair, the couple change places. He sets up a three-person version of the same trick. All three assistants suddenly become the magician and the footmen. He makes the original three, and the chair, appear and vanish. The company comes back for a bow. Georges Méliès plays the magician. The French title is La Chaise à porteurs enchantée.
Cast & crew
More about The Enchanted Sedan Chair
Star Film numbered it 738–739. The film follows “La Cage d’Or,” an illusion Méliès built in 1897 for the Théâtre Robert-Houdin. Effects are substitution splices and dissolves. A Commons copy runs 3 minutes and 14 seconds. That file was taken from the DVD set Georges Méliès: The First Wizard of Cinema (1896–1913).
Themes
Making
Méliès filmed a stage illusion he had sold at the Robert-Houdin in 1897, using splices for the swaps inside the chair.
Preservation
The short survives. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- The glass box starts empty. The clothes come out of it.
- The chair is the cover for the exchange, not a vehicle that goes anywhere.
- The bow at the end puts the company back on the stage together.
- Méliès is the only player named.
Scenes
- Clothes come out of the empty glass box and become a dressed couple.
- The couple trade places under the shawl and the chair.
- The three assistants turn into the magician and the footmen.
Influenced by
- Georges Méliès’s 1897 stage illusion La Cage d’Or
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (La Chaise à porteurs enchantée (1905).webm)
- DVD: Georges Méliès: The First Wizard of Cinema (1896–1913)
