The Magician and the Imp
About The Magician and the Imp
A magician comes on with an imp. The imp holds a cloth. At a command the cloth becomes a girl in tights. She goes into a barrel and comes out the other end as a man. He jumps through a paper hoop and lands as the girl again. Set on a table, she stays in the air after the table is taken away. Two benches and chairs appear. A man and the girl sit, fade, and return in each other’s places. The description is the Star Film catalog text for this title. Georges Méliès directed.
Cast & crew
More about The Magician and the Imp
Wikidata times it at 1 minute. A Commons filename attached to this record is La Clownesse fantôme (1902), the short sold in the United States as The Shadow-Girl and in Britain as Twentieth Century Conjuring. That is a different Méliès title from the same year. This entry does not treat that file as a confirmed copy of The Magician and the Imp.
Themes
Making
The catalog sells the short as a string of substitutions: cloth to girl, barrel to man, hoop back to girl, then a body left in the air.
Notes
- The imp’s only job in the catalog text is to hold the cloth.
- The girl and the man trade bodies at the barrel and again at the hoop.
- The floating figure is the girl after the table is removed.
- The Shadow-Girl is a separate 1902 Star Film release.
Scenes
- The cloth in the imp’s hands becomes a girl in tights.
- She enters the barrel and a man comes out.
- The table is removed and she stays in the air.
