The Infernal Cauldron
About The Infernal Cauldron
In a Renaissance room hung with devil faces, a green demon tosses a woman and two courtiers into a flaming cauldron. Each body sends up a burst of fire. The victims rise as ghosts, then turn into fireballs that multiply and chase the demon around the room. He jumps into the cauldron himself, and the pot throws one last flame.
Cast & crew
More about The Infernal Cauldron
Georges Méliès plays the demon, called Belphegor in the American Star Film catalogue. The film is numbered 499–500. British release title: The Infernal Cauldron. American title: The Infernal Cauldron and the Phantasmal Vapors. The negative is about 36 meters (116 feet). Effects are pyrotechnics, multiple exposure, soft focus, and substitution splices. Méliès shot two negatives at once, one for home sale and one for export, with his two-lens camera.
Themes
Making
Méliès stages the whole action in one painted chamber so the substitutions and the firebursts read against a fixed background.
Look
The camera stays locked on the chamber. Victims become ghosts and fireballs through multiple exposure and substitution splices. Flames are practical pyrotechnics.
Technique
Because Méliès exposed two negatives together, modern restorers could line the pair up as a stereo image.
Preservation
Prints survive from both of Méliès's simultaneous negatives. Lobster Films combined them as a 3D version in the 2000s.
Notes
- Star Film sold it as a trick subject, not as a story with titles.
- Lobster Films later paired the two original negatives to make a 3D version.
- That 3D reconstruction was shown at the Cinémathèque française in January 2010 and at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in September 2011.
- The demon's green skin is part of the costume and the tinting of the print, not a separate character.
- Internet Archive holds a copy as LeChaudronInfernal.
Scenes
- The demon pitches three people into the pot and flames jump up.
- Ghosts thicken into fireballs and chase him.
- He leaps into the cauldron and the fire bursts once more.
Also available
- Internet Archive (LeChaudronInfernal)
