One of Melies' movie versions of magic shows: in this one he turns fires into women in spangly dresses -- one yellow and one blue in the hand-tinted version I saw -- and then turns them back into a fire.
Although this lacks either the elaborate background and miniature work of his well-known pieces from this period -- VOYAGE A LA LUNE for example -- or the elaborate costumery of such works as LES CARTES VIVANTES, this is still a fine little programmer by the standards of 1904, with Melies' usual, well-executed camera trickery. It must have been quite a wow for the audience of the period and if, more than a hundred years later, it lacks any oomph that would make you seek it out -- unless, like me, you're a sucker for everything Melies -- it still is a fine show of what the leading cineaste of the period was doing.