A Pipe Dream (1905) Online

A lady smokes a cigarette and observes the way the smoke curls around her fingers.... as it forms into a little man kneeling on her hand, pleading with her. Then the image fades and she examines her hand with a quizzical expression.

Billy Bitzer shot this trick film for Biograph and it is an amusing little trifle in the period just before the company shifted to more substantial works. These days he is remembered as "Griffith's cameraman" and he contributed mightily to the evolution of film as we know it today, with his technical expertise; he had, after all, been a motion picture camera man a dozen years before Griffith set foot in front of a movie camera -- or behind it. There's no way of knowing whose idea this one-minute short was, and perhaps no one will ever identify the actress who stares in delightful confusion at her hand. However, together, they created a fine little movie.