Ancient Egypt: A magician wants to prove his craft to a prince, so he
brings along a skeleton which he is able to make move. He then covers the
skeleton in sheets, upon which it dances outrageously, stretches to
breaking point, and does all kinds of wild stuff. The prince though is
first and foremost scared of the monster, so the magician turns it into a
lovely girl, whom the prince immediately lusts after. The magician wraps
her up as if she was a present and gives her to the prince - but when he
unwraps his present, it turns out to be nothing but a skeleton. A
short of less than three minutes, this is nevertheless one of the earliest
monster movies, and while the film is feeble on plot, it at least shows
Georges Méliès' predilection for special effects, several of which seem
to be derived from his magic show though - which doesn't make them any
less convincing. A certain dose of humour (present in many of Méliès'
films) make this one entertaining though more than a century after it was
made, and beyond the sheer admiration of early special effects.
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