Magic Bricks (1908) User Reviews

Fingers in the Air

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 19 June 2009]

No doubt this film was intended to wow early 20th century audiences with its conjuring tricks but, of course these are not so impressive today. After all, to show a magician's 'tricks' through the use of stop-motion photography defeats the object really: the magic's being performed behind the camera here rather than in front of it.

What I liked about the film was the two Chinese assistants who magically appear from the conjurer's magic box, both grinning inanely with their index fingers pointing skywards. It was probably a racial stereotype back then, but it made me laugh. Check them out holding a smiley, pointy-fingers-in-the-air conversation in the background while the magician goes about his business. Hilarious.

Sure, it's a complete knock-off, but it's still entertaining

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 15 September 2006]

This film is very entertaining, and if I had not already seen "Le Thaumaturge Chinois" by Georges Méliès, I would have no doubt scored it higher. That's because "Le Thaumaturge Chinois" was in many ways the exact same film but made several years earlier! It was not very uncommon in the early days of cinema for studios to plagiarize the work of their competitors. Today, they would have no doubt been sued for this, but in the "wild and crazy" days of early cinema, it was not very unusual. However, I also have to admit that Magic Bricks perhaps a little better AND it also is totally hand-colored! Nice stuff, but hardly original!

VERY impressive for its time

[Squirrel-5 · 6/10 · 13 April 2003]

This film has special effects which for it's time are very impressive. Some if it is easily explainable with the scenes played backwards but the overlay of moving images on an object on film is surprisingly well done given that this film was made more than 94 years ago.

Well-Crafted But Rather Bland

[Snow Leopard · 9 November 2004]

There are lots of visual effects and camera tricks in this short feature about "Magic Bricks", and most of them work well. Evaluated solely in terms of technique, it's quite good. The material itself, though, is rather bland, with only a couple of really interesting moments.

The movie shows two conjurers performing an act together, using boxes, blocks, and other similar props. Except for one or two of the tricks later in the show, most of their tricks are not especially interesting in themselves, and the main reason to watch this film is to see how the camera was used to create illusions that would otherwise have been difficult or impossible to make.

Most of the visual effects work well, and they give the appearance of having been set up and filmed with care. The film was also hand-tinted in color, although much of the color has now faded. The technical and production end are pretty good, and they make it watchable in spite of the somewhat drab nature of the material itself.

Not as fantastic as it looks

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 14 October 2017]

"Magic Bricks" is a French 3-minute short film by Spanish director Segundo de Chomón and those who only know about the very basics of silent film have certainly come across the name already as he comes right after Méliès in a group of prolific and successful filmmakers that also include Griffith for example. But SdC is certainly closer to Méliès from what we see here too. Magic shows were a common subject in these movies that are over a century old, actually almost 110 years old in this case. The big special thing in here, however, is not the plot or the acting or the magic, but the use of color which was really not common at all at that point. Hell half a century later, the majority of films were in black-and-white. So today we of course don't really see color as something special, but back then it absolutely was. Still I would say that everything taken together here, it was not a great film, not among the best of its era or from its filmmaker. I give it a thumbs-down this time.

This is actually Japonaiseries (1904)

[hideouslizardman · 4/10 · 9 October 2020]

The only thing correct about this entry is that is was made at the Pathé studio in France. The real title is Japonaiseries (Japanese Varieties) and it was directed by Gaston Velle in 1904. There is an entry on IMDb under that title as well. Perhaps the Magic Bricks title and identification of de Chomón as director was dreamed up by the producers of the Kino DVD, The Movies Begin, which contains a lot of errors similar to this one. This entry should be removed.

Of course it is simple but it is technically impressive and is a great experimental short

[bob the moo · 21 April 2007]

Two magicians make people appear and disappear in front of our very eyes in this colourful French short film. Modern audiences will not be amazed at all by the appearing and disappearing characters but at the time I can imagine it was met with "how did they do that" gasps. However watching it now is still a wonderful experience because this was almost exactly a hundred years ago when this sort of thing was new and being thought up as these films were made. New ideas were being taken and expanded upon and used in different ways.

This film simply gives the producers a structure to play within. There is some humour but really this is all about the visual effects and with the colours on top of that it makes it interesting to watch when you have a feel for what the historical context you are watching it within.

Beautiful & colorful trick film by Chomon

[Tornado_Sam · 6 June 2017]

When it comes to color-stenciling, the Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomon knew it all. I do not know him as well as Georges Melies, but when it came to visual effects, Chomon was good at competing with his rival. Unfortunately I don't have many of his films on DVD, it's sad that in Kino's wonderful cinema set they didn't include more of his films because there are only two, this being one of them. However, what this film displays is very good. Not only do we get a great coloring job but also we get some great visuals.

First, a Chinese conjurer and his assistant appear in a strange kind of box and make a woman appear in the box. They make her disappear. The conjurers then stack some bricks on a table and knock them off. Then one of the conjurers holds up a piece of paper and the bricks magically move up in front of it. Then pictures appear on the bricks.

Segundo de Chomon was a genius. He deserves as much appreciation as Melies.

chinese magic at his best

[karl-68 · 30 June 2002]

this movie is very familiar to george melies movie tchin chao the chinese conjurer from 1904 but melies worked with living animals and pathe did not he uses some other techniques,i see it as a remake of melies work.