Excelsior! (1901) Online

Prince Of Magicians, The (1901)

*** (out of 4)

aka Excelsior !

A magician (played by Melies) brings an assistant into his room where various tricks are pulled. This seems like a greatest hits package from the director who doesn't do anything too great here but all of the magic on display is quite good and makes for an entertaining film. One gag has Melies turn the man into a water fountain by spitting water out of his mouth into a bowl and then the director follows that up by pulling a fish out of the mouth. There's also a nice sequence where he turns a woman into two little girls. The final trick in the movie is also quite good and these are enough reasons to make this film worth viewing.

Just watched this preserved Georges Melies film on the "Saved from the Flames" DVD collection. In this one, the master magician takes his assistant's handkerchief out of his mouth and uncovers a bowl from that handkerchief. He then has the assistant use his mouth as a fountain which initially misses the bowl! Fish then comes out of that mouth in said bowl. Then there's a few other tricks involving a giant lobster, a woman, two girls, and then disappearing in thin air behind a cape before coming back to take a final bow. The end. Once again, it's fascinating watching these early trick photography movies to see how people attempted even then to provide an entertainment of illusion. And Melies was more than ready for the challenge! So on that note, Excelisior! The Prince of Magicians is well worth seeing.

French filmmaking magician Georges Melies appears on stage and produces a glass bowl under a handkerchief. He pumps the arm of his older male assistant to fill the bowl with water. Naturally, a fish will appear in the water. And, that's not all. A dizzying parade of increasingly outrageous materializations occur. Melies uses the trick photography he made so famous - but, there is more here than meets the eye. Melies doesn't just show the trick. His films display comic performance in addition to the technical skills. For example, Melies amusingly has to move the bowl when the first water (intentionally) misses the mark.

****** Excelsior! (1901) Georges Melies ~ Georges Melies

Some of the tried and true works here. Melies plays both the magician and his partner. The best scene is where he places a large goblet on a table and pumps the man's arm, causing water to shoot from his mouth, into the goblet. He then does a tired trick with a big sheet which when removed reveals a lobster. He does it again and it turns into a woman. There are a few other things. It's basically a magic show.

Enjoying his 1906 film Les quatre cents farces du diable,I decided to take a look at Georges Méliès's IMDb board.Looking at a top 5 list that a fellow IMDber had made,I spotted a Méliès title that I've not heard of before,which led to me entering the magic circle.

The plot:

Getting set for the night's performance,a magician practices his routine with his assistant.During the test run,the magician tries some tricks which go a bit fiery.

View on the film:

Taking a break from Sci-Fi and Fantasy,writer/director and lead actor Méliès performs a magic show on screen. Whilst the jarring cuts lead to some of the performance methods being clear to see, Méliès is still about to cast an atmosphere of wonderment over the title. Using props for a number of the routines, Méliès displays an impeccable eye for in-camera tricks,with routines involving people disappearing in bed sheets and fish popping out of people's mouths still being impressive,as the magician pulls the magic pump.

This is a Méliès short film from 1901, almost 115 years ago and we get to see a lot of tricks in these 2.5 minutes. Some fire, some water, a woman magically appears, the magician magically disappears, then reappears etc. It's obviously in black-and-white, even if Méliès has already worked with colors at that point, and a silent film. All in all, I would say this is among the director's mediocre films, not one of his best, but not one of his worst either. He gets help from an assistant in this one too, not too common, but it makes obvious that it is really a magic show put on the screen. For 1901 standards, it's merely an okay movie I believe and really only worth a watch for film history buffs.

Georges Melies once again plays a magician who performs an endless series of sight gags with the assistance of stop action motion and with the foreground superimposed on the background in precisely exact manner to gain a desired effect. The opening human pump trick is probably the best, as the film simply flip-flops between humans and various objects, which then morph into other things. Melies is now over-utilizing the stop action motion to the point of inhibiting further creativity, but the edits are worked to perfection and occur so quickly that one does not tire of the repeated use of the technique until the film is over. *** of 4 stars.

This film was included in the three DVD set "Saved From the Flames"--a collection of mostly ephemeral movies that have managed to avoid turning to powder, catching fire or melting--something that usually happened with the nitrate film stock used up through the 1950s.

This is a film that was made by Georges Georges Méliès and he stars as the magician--though it might be hard to recognize him in a wig. Like so many of his films, this one is basically a magic routine that was filmed using LOTS of stop-motion. In other words, to make things disappear, the camera was stopped and people or objects were removed--while those remaining in the shots were to stay as still as possible. In it's day, this was hot stuff though today's audiences will be less thrilled by the trick camera work. Excellent for its day, though, as seeing ladies disappear and water come shooting out of the assistant's mouth were pretty slickly done. And, compared to the film maker's other work, this one is about average.