The Firefall
About The Firefall
A bourgeois room becomes an enchanted cave. Dancers appear. The cave turns back into the apartment, but one dancer is still lying on the sofa, and the man of the house runs to her. Georges Méliès plays Satan. The French title is La Cascade de feu. Britain sold it as Cascade of Fire.
Cast & crew
More about The Firefall
Star Film numbered it 665–667. The effects are pyrotechnics, substitution splices, multiple exposures, and dissolves. The baroque frame was reused from the aquarium in The Mermaid, made earlier in 1904. A French listing times a copy at 2 minutes 40 seconds. Wikidata lists 3 minutes. John Frazer described the print in 1979 in Artificially Arranged Scenes, but he called this film Beelzebub’s Daughters. The short he labeled The Firefall is by Ferdinand Zecca.
Themes
Making
Méliès set fire effects inside a frame he had already used for The Mermaid, then cut the room into a cave and back.
Reviews
John Frazer, in Artificially Arranged Scenes (1979), found the film slow beside other Méliès work of 1904. He had the title wrong.
Preservation
A print has been known since at least 1979. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Satan is Méliès. The man who runs to the sofa is the owner of the room.
- The fire is a practical effect, not a painted backdrop only.
- Frazer thought the picture was slow next to other Méliès films of the year.
- A Commons file uses the French title.
Scenes
- The room opens into a cave and the dancers appear.
- The cave closes. One dancer is still on the sofa.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (La Cascade de feu (1904).webm)
