[Le Revenant]

0501-0502

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[Le Revenant]


El Aparecido

MEL 1904-A


The Apparition, or Mr. Jones' Comical Experience with a Ghost

(very comical)

Interior of the bedroom of an inn. Arrival of a traveller accompanied by a servant, who shows him into the room and places upon a table a candlestick.
She assists the traveller in removing his coat and in slipping on his house coat. He seats himself besides the table to read his paper, when suddenly the candle moves itself to the other end of the table. The traveler brings back the candlestick to its place, and again it moves away. And for three times it does the same thing. The traveler, enraged, takes his seat on the other side of the table, but the candle instantly flees from him. A most strenuous parsuit begins, the candle always keeping away from the traveler. After a while, the candle suddenly becomes enormously large, then it changes into an almost invisible shape, and finally it resumes its normal size. The traveler, believing that he can read in peace, starts again to peruse his paper, when the candle moves up and sets fire to it. He throws the paper quickly away and strives to put out the flames with a siphon of seltzer water, but they, on the contrary, grow larger, and in the midst of them appears the Genius of Fire, who changes imperceptibly into a phantom or grotesque apparition. The traveler starts a topsy-turvy combat with the spectre, thwarting it in every way, while he overturns furniture, wash-basin, chairs, stumbling down every moment. But the phantom is in no wise affected, and it begins a grotesque dance, sometimes becoming very indistinct, sometimes clear, sometimes transparent, sometimes opaque. Finally it enters into the most marvellous vibrations, horizontal and vertical. (New trick.) These strange contortions of the spectre, the changes in distinctness of the apparition while the rest of the picture, together with the traveler, remains clear, constitute a very curious fascination. The traveler, in a final effort, makes an attempt to strike the ghost with an umbrella, but it vanishes, and when the door opens again, the maid enters with a collation just in time to receive the blow intended for the spectre. Her tray, the dishes, the bottles fly into pieces, while the traveler falls to earth exhausted.

MEL 1905-A

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1 Méliès 501-502  
2 Georges Méliès  
3 1903 50m/170ft
4 France   

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