The Waif and the Wizard
About The Waif and the Wizard
A magician finishes his act with a boy from the audience and goes home with him. At the house a sister is sick and a landlord is threatening to put the mother out. The magician uses his tricks to help the girl. Another title is The Home Made Happy.
Cast & crew
More about The Waif and the Wizard
Walter R. Booth directed this British trick film for Robert W. Paul. It runs two minutes. It is built as two shots, in the line of Paul’s earlier Come Along Do!. The magician is the same young man who appeared in Undressing Extraordinary.
Themes
Making
Paul produced. Booth staged the change from the stage act to the room where the sister is ill.
Reviews
Michael Brooke, writing for BFI Screenonline, contrasted the sparse tricks with the other Booth-Paul films of 1901 and tied them to the sick sister.
Technique
The film is two shots. The magic is used in the second, inside the house, rather than only on the stage.
Music
Silent.
Notes
- Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline wrote that the effects are fewer than in the other Booth and Paul films of 1901, and that they sit inside the sickroom story.
- The catalog notes that the performer may be Booth himself.
- The landlord’s threat is what sends the magic into the house.
- It is a comedy trick picture, not a straight drama.
Scenes
- The boy helps the magician finish the act.
- At home, the magician finds the sick sister and the landlord.
Influenced by
- Come Along Do!, an earlier two-shot film by Robert W. Paul
