[Le Roi des tireurs] 

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[Le Roi des tireurs]


The King of Sharpshooters

Among the properties is a massive candelabrum, eight or ten feet high, with five branches. The king of sharpshooters enters, followed by his assistants. He first takes some large playing cards, passes them to a young woman who holds them for him to shoot at. When he has put some holes through them he takes them from his assistant, runs his arm into the bullet holes, and then sends the cards fluttering through the air in as perfect a condition as they were before he shot at them. After a few shooing tricks he removes his own head from his body, throws it to an assistant who places it in one of the sockets of the huge candelabrum. The instant the head is fixed in place, a new head appears on the sharpshooter and the throws this away to his assistants who put it into mother socket of the candelabrum, and so on until all the sockets are filled. He takes his gun and shoots all the heads away except the one in the middle. Suddenly a body appears in the place of the middle head. It jumps to the floor; it is none other than the sharpshooter himself who, through a clever trick, had substituted one of the assistants for himself, while he was shooting at the heads. The sight of the five heads all absolutely alike dancing in the sockets of the candelabrum creates a sensation as mystifying as it is ludicrous, and the marvel of the trick is that the sharpshooter is able to get a new head as soon as he parts with the old one.

MEL 1905-A

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1 Méliès 680-682  
2 Georges Méliès   
3 1905 70m/225ft
4 France  

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13/05/1905 États-UnisNew York
The New York Clipper The King of Sharpshooters

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