The Magician and the Imp (1902) User Reviews

Sex change surgery made easy!

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 9 September 2020]

The IMDB summary is not quite right. It says the magician is assisted by an imp. Well, an imp is a demon...and his assistant in this one is a guy in a clown suit. To some, they MIGHT be one in the same...but not really!

The magician and his assistant make a girl appear out of thin air. Using stop action, the filmmaker then makes it appear as if she's changed into a guy and then back again. It's a pretty simple trick..one Georges Méliès had done many, many times before this and with very similar results.

By the way, the film is on YouTube but the first few seconds are horribly degraded...but watchable.

Stop Action Transformations

[Hitchcoc · 4/10 · 13 November 2017]

A lesser offering. First of all, the action has been done so much in the past. Two men start with a barrel. A man is transformed into a woman, sort of a chorus girl, and then back. By this time Melies had done this so many times. I need to investigate what the venue was for these films. Were they curiosities? Were they part of a larger performance of some kind? I must get a book on Melies.

Shadow-Girl, The

[Michael_Elliott · 1 April 2008]

Shadow-Girl, The (1902)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

aka La Clownesse fantome

More magic tricks from Melies who this time has two magicians pull a sheet out of a box and then unravel it to reveal a woman. After a few more tricks they have the girl climb through a barrel and then a man appears. Considering this film was released just after the landmark A Trip to the Moon one might call it a disappointment but it's actually pretty good for this type of film. The special effects are pretty good, although the final trick is easy to spot due to a poor edit. While the film isn't anything special and really doesn't stick out in the director's career, it's still worth watching for fans.