The Dancing Midget
La Danseuse microscopique, 1902, 2m43s
Star Film Catalogue No. 394-396
A top-hatted magician shakes out a sheet, from which his assistant emerges. The magician extracts six eggs from his assistant’s mouth, which he places onto a stand. He breaks the eggs into his hat, stirring them with his wand. He shakes a large number of feathers out of the hat over his assistant, and then extracts a large egg. He places it on the table, and it doubles in size, and then explodes, to reveal a tiny ballerina. She dances on the table-top, admired by the men, who perform crude imitations of her flowing movements. Suddenly, she grows to life-size, and the magician helps her off the table. The men place a large wooden crate onto two stands, and the assistant gets in. The magician drapes the sheet around the ballerina, and pulls it away to reveal his assistant - and the ballerina simultaneously emerges from the box. The three bow together, and the magician banishes his assistant before linking arms with the ballerina and walking into the distance.
The Dancing Midget (whose slightly more PC French title translates as ‘The Microscopic Female Dancer’) is another set of variations on familiar Méliès themes, though the central image of a tiny ballerina performing on a table-top is so delightful that it more than compensates for the sense of déjà vu that pervades much of the rest of the film, starting from the recycled set from The Dwarf and the Giant (Nain et géant, 1901).
Once again, we have the scenario of a magician and his assistant - the arrangement here is broadly similar to that in The Prince of Magicians (Excelsior!, 1901). In that film, the magician’s aide was turned into a makeshift soda siphon, while here he’s required to produce half a dozen eggs from his mouth in quick succession. Their contents are mixed in the magician’s top hat (using his wand to stir them), and a well-timed jump-cut leads to the first of the film’s oddly poetic images - this time, of an implausible number of feathers descending from the hat onto the assistant.
The centre-piece of the film involves the ballerina, who is hatched from an egg that grows to giant size - albeit, somewhat disappointingly, via jump-cuts rather than any of Méliès’s more elaborate shrinking and growing effects. But the tiny ballerina herself is wholly believable, especially given the way the men react to her and (badly) try to imitate her movements. After this high point, the film has nowhere else to go, despite Méliès attempting to maintain interest by introducing a new trick in the form of a sheet-and-coffin swapover (as usual, achieved via jump cuts).
There’s some severe damage at the beginning and end, and tramlines, speckling and mild exposure fluctuations throughout, but in general the untinted print on Flicker Alley’s DVD is in very good condition, the picture sufficiently sharp to be able to make out some background details in the superimposed material, which may not have been Méliès’ intention. Neal Kurz’s lyrical piano accompaniment fits the images to perfection.
Links
- Internet Movie Database entry.
- Jshaide’s review (Rotten Tomatoes forum)
Posted on 8th July 2008
Under: Jump-Cuts, Stage Magic, Superimposition, 1902 | No Comments »
In a lavishly appointed room, a woman is serenaded by a man playing a lute while balanced on a ladder propped up just outside her window. After they clasp hands and gaze lovingly into each other’s eyes, he descends to the ground. She crosses the room, beside herself with emotion. A devil appears in the alcove, causes bars to appear on her window, taunts her, and then performs a suggestive dance, gradually growing in size until he towers above her. In desperation, the woman pleads to a statue of the Madonna, who comes to life and shrinks the devil back to his original size, causing him to disappear. She then banishes the bars, and the lovers are reunited. 
However, despite the impressive build-up (in every sense), the dénouement can’t help but be a little disappointing, consisting largely of a reversal of the previous effect, at the end of which the devil simply fizzles out. Compared with the Grand Guignol head explosion of the previous film, one is entitled to feel a little short-changed, and for all the elegance of the set (the Renaissance Italian ambience is very effective), this is one of Méliès’ minor efforts.
A man clad in top hat and tails enters a well-appointed drawing room, tips his hat to the audience, and places it on a small table. He takes off his coat, and shakes a larger table out of it. After adjusting the positioning of the new table, he drapes his coat over it, and it turns into a white tablecloth. He picks up his hat, and reveals that it’s empty. He then pulls four plates out of it and lays them on the tablecloth. He returns to the hat, and pulls out a set of four glasses and napkins, which he lays out next to the plates. He pulls a carafe of water and a bottle of wine out of the hat, and then some cutlery. He returns to the hat, and looks at it quizzically before producing a fan out of his pocket and waving it. Both fan and hat take on gigantic proportions. He climbs onto a stool to reach inside the hat, from which he retrieves four chairs and places them round the table. He tilts the hat forwards to reveal that it’s empty, but then extracts a man and two women, who take their places around the table. He turns the hat upside down and shakes it, and a second man emerges. The host places the hat back on his head, and it shrinks to normal size. He invites his guests to sit down, then conjures up a serving maid, who gives them food. The host looks conspiratorially at the audience, and then leaps onto the table - which disappears into the floor, taking the host with him. A picture on the wall comes to life, and looks highly amused. The host re-emerges on the other side of the room, laughing heartily as his guests leave in a huff. The picture reverts to its static form. The host picks up the discarded tablecloth and tosses it in the air. When it descends onto his shoulders, it turns back into his coat. He picks up his top hat, bows and leaves.
Although from a technical viewpoint this is largely familiar stuff, the timing of the business with the coat (which disgorges a table before transforming itself into a tablecloth) is impressively adroit, and the moment towards the very end when a portrait comes to life is delightfully unexpected. Instead of returning to the superimposition technique featured in 
Bluebeard enters the hall of his castle and walks between two lines of women - but every time he attempts to make conversation with one of them, she turns her face away. He summons servants, who bring forth vast wealth as a bribe. One of the women is reluctantly persuaded to go with him, her father dragging her hand so that it can be clasped by Bluebeard. She snatches it away and bursts into tears. Two notaries are summoned, and the couple are married. One asks for payment, and Bluebeard angrily kicks his sheaf of papers into the air. Bluebeard brings his new wife to the kitchen to show the lavish meals being prepared. Vast arrangements of food and gigantic bottles are carried through by servants. Horseplay between two of them leads to a third being knocked into a cauldron by a flying cabbage. The meal is served in the gigantic dining room, with many guests in attendance. Bluebeard introduces his new wife, whose wedding train is held up by several servants. Bluebeard proposes a toast. When the couple is alone, Bluebeard gives his wife a bunch of keys, and says that she has the freedom of his castle, with the exception of one room. He then leaves for six weeks, followed by numerous servants carrying his luggage. His wife looks at the forbidden door, clearly tempted. A satanic imp leaps out of the pages of a large book and compels her to open the door before returning from whence he came. Inside the room, she finds the hanged corpses of Bluebeard’s previous wives, and drops the key in a pool of their blood. While she tries to wash it off, the imp reappears, and the incriminating key grows to gigantic size. A fairy appears and shrinks it. Bluebeard’s eighth wife leaves, and has a disturbing dream (egged on by the imp) in which she is visited by the ghosts of her predecessors, following which she is stabbed by her husband, and eight gigantic keys frolic over her prone body before they and the imp are banished by the fairy. Bluebeard returns to find his eighth wife trying to wash blood off the forbidden key. She starts when she sees him, and he grabs her arm, trying to get the key back. She runs up to the castle battlements to consort with her sister (who is keeping a lookout for her brothers), but Bluebeard follows her, grabs her and tosses her body around. He drags her down the steps, only to find her brothers breaking through the gate. They pin Bluebeard to the wall with a sword, and the fairy emerges from the well to summon the ghosts of his wives, who throw off their veils to reveal that they’ve come back to life. They shake their fists at him in unison, but are distracted by seven noblemen appearing and paying court to them. They all leave, the last to depart retrieving his sword from Bluebeard’s belly. He falls to the ground, and the scenery gives way to reveal everyone else living happily ever after.
Following 
When she enters the forbidden chamber, Méliès milks the suspense by keeping the light levels low. We can make out strange bag-shaped things seemingly hanging from the ceiling, and of course those familiar with the story will know exactly what they are, but several seconds elapse before she manages to cross the room and fling open the curtain, to reveal the corpses of her seven predecessors. Méliès has often been described as one of the precursors of the horror genre, but this revelation has a genuine creepiness that earlier romps like 
After this, the rest of the film is more prosaic. Set in the courtyard of Bluebeard’s castle, it shows his return and ultimate subjugation at the hands of his new wife’s relatives, the only technical points of interest being his alarmingly violent subjugation of her (achieved by switching a dummy at a key moment, along similar lines to 
Two men enter a room, one wearing a pale wig, the other a dark-haired magician. The latter bows to an unseen audience, turns to his companion and indicates that he should do something. The bewigged man leans forward slightly, and the magician pulls a cloth from out of his mouth. The magician displays the cloth from all possible angles, and produces a glass bowl from behind it. After placing it on a small chest, the magician positions his friend and pumps his arm up and down. The man’s mouth emits a jet of water, but it misses the bowl at first. The magician adjusts its position and continues pumping. When it is full of water, the magician picks up the bowl and puts it on a small table. He pats the man on the back, and a fish emerges from his mouth, which is placed in the bowl. Another fish is produced in a similar fashion. The magician then hands the bowl to his friend, but it bursts into flames, and he quickly puts it down. The magician produces a large piece of cloth from the bowl, behind which is a gigantic lobster. The magician hands the lobster to his friend, transforming it into a woman in the process. The magician wraps a sheet around her and pulls it away to reveal a girl sitting on top of another girl’s shoulders. The magician separates them, takes them each by the hand, and makes them bow to the audience. He then transforms them into pieces of cloth, which he inserts into the bowl. He asks his friend to bring over another bowl, and he pours water out of the first bowl into it. The friend examines the second bowl rather too closely for the magician’s comfort, and he angrily expels him from the room. He then picks up a large sheet, wraps himself up in it, and ascends through the ceiling. He re-enters the room just in time to catch the falling sheet. He bows again. 
Given that Flicker Alley’s DVDs (both Georges Méliès: The First Wizard of Cinema 1896-1913 and Saved From The Flames) contain what is believed to be the only surviving copy of this film (Lobster Films in Paris obtained it after purchasing a job-lot of prints found in an antique dealer’s trunk), it’s in remarkably good condition, with only minor surface famage and a generally very sharp, well-exposed picture. The jaunty chamber-orchestra score is pretty generic, but sets the right tone.
A bachelor visits a witch and asks her to find him a wife. She asks him for money, and he tosses her a small purse. She concocts a potion in her cauldron and sets fire to it. Once the flames die down, a beautiful woman emerges. The witch multiplies her into five women and asks the bachelor to choose. After carefully examining them, he picks the second and asks her to sit down on a stool. The witch then folds the other four women back into one, and makes her disappear in a puff of smoke. The bachelor begins to woo his chosen companion, but as he gets particularly ardent, she changes into the witch, who cackles with glee at the trick she has played on him. When the enraged bachelor tries to attack her, she transforms him into a donkey and mounts him, riding him around the cauldron to the accompaniment of regular beatings from her riding crop. 
The special effects are mostly very straightforward jump-cuts, though a combination of these and well-judged movement allows Méliès to create the impression that the various women are “unfolded” from each other, as though multiple cut-outs on a paper chain. The design of the witch’s lair includes many props familiar from earlier Méliès films, such as the outsized scissors from 
A businessman enters a hotel room and hangs his umbrella, coat and hat on the leftmost of a row of hooks. He then removes his jacket and waistcoat and places them on a nearby chair. As he removes his trousers, another coat and hat appear on his back and head. He removes these and places them on the hook next to his original coat and hat, but as he removes them, another hat appears on his head, and he is clad in a pair of check trousers. This process is repeated several times, with the businessman becoming increasingly agitated. When all the hooks are full, he starts flinging his clothes into the corner, the pile growing increasingly large. Finally, he jumps on the bed and pulls the covers over himself, only for the bed to vanish. He resumes undressing again, and discovers that he is now wearing multiple layers of clothing.
The frenzy continues right to the end of the film, even beyond what appears to be the climax (the vanishing of the bed at a crucial moment, a Méliès device now so familiar as to be somewhat predictable), as if to suggest that the poor man’s plight will continue indefinitely. The two earlier films mentioned above finished with the protagonists fleeing the room, though here (possibly exacerbated by the abrupt ending of the print under review) he seems doomed, Sisyphus-like, to try to undress for ever.
On Christmas Eve, a child is tucked up in bed. In Father Christmas’s grotto, his servants are hard at work, but take advantage of his absence to admire an elaborate procession and perform a dance featuring a ballerina solo. Father Christmas returns, grabs one of his charges by the ear and cuffs him. On the town’s snow-covered rooftops, angels deposit presents down the chimney. Bellringers announce that it’s Christmas, and a group of people enters the church, shaking off the snow. Doves flutter around the gigantic bell. People parade through the town centre, many holding lanterns. A man interrupts a Christmas feast to ask for alms, and after a brief altercation is welcomed to join the revellers. In the child’s bedroom, various presents are unwrapped as other family members come with Christmas wishes. A long line of children dances in a snowy landscape.
The mythical material continues into the next shot, as presents are deposited down chimneys - though in an unexpected touch, the deliveries are being facilitated by two angels, their wings offset by the snow-covered roofs depicted in a foreshortened perspective familiar from other Méliès titles, which has the effect of grouping the buildings tightly together. The church spire can be seen in the distance, towering over the rest, and the whole scene is being gently blanketed with presumably artificial snow.
We then return to the child’s bedchamber, and while the social aspects of Christmas continue to be a running theme (though this time on a family level), the consumerist elements take over, as the child is given various large animal toys, a drum, a doll and other assorted knick-knacks. Finally, all the children dance around a Christmas tree, perhaps the single most universally recognised symbol of the season, which brings the film to a fitting close (albeit a somewhat abrupt one in the print under review, which seems to end fractionally too early).
A wizard sits at his desk, leafing through a book. A prince enters, and the two have an animated conversation, at the end of which the prince gives the wizard a small purse of money. The wizard places it on his desk, which promptly vanishes, and then transforms his cauldron into a woman. Startled, the prince initially doesn’t know what to make of this, but he quickly composes himself and kisses her hand. He woos her verbally, but when he attempts to embrace her, she vanishes. The prince angrily complains to the wizard, drawing his sword and trying to run him through. But as soon as the blade touches the wizard, he is replaced by a pillar with an abusive effigy, reappearing on the other side of the room. The prince grabs him again and tries the same thing - but is left holding an empty cloak, with the wizard reappearing elsewhere. The third time, the prince hits the wizard with his sword and causes him to disappear in a puff of smoke. The prince tries to leave, but bars cover one exit, and nine hook-nosed witches suddenly enter via the other door. They surround and taunt him, turning him into a shabby old tramp. In despair, he falls to his knees. A fairy appears, disperses the other women, and causes the bars to disappear, revealing an idyllic glade outside. The fairy causes the woman from earlier to reappear, clad in a bridal dress, the prince reverts to his former self, and the witches are transformed into a wedding party. The wizard reappears, but before he can do anything the fairy imprisons him in a cage. 
On a technical level, this is pretty familiar stuff for Méliès, the special effects consisting of the usual jump-cuts and puff-of-smoke explosions. Disappointingly, no use is made of the skeleton on the left of the frame, and the all too brief sequence when the wizard is transformed into a pillar sporting a nose-thumbing effigy is the only effect that goes to more elaborate lengths. Still, there’s lots going on, with plenty of rug-pulling plot twists for a brief Méliès film, and he also makes more use than usual of the three-dimensional space in front of the standard painted backdrop: the action gets closer and closer to the camera as the film progresses.
In his lavishly appointed bedroom, the Rajah stretches, yawns and rubs his eyes before going to sleep. A large butterfly flutters into the room, waking him up. He grasps a net and chases it around the room. After several attempts at catching it, he gives up, yawns, and lies back on the bed, only to find that the room has vanished around him and he’s now flat on his back in the middle of the grounds of his palace. He gets up and looks around, bemused. Spotting a chair, he tries to sit on it, but it vanishes, reappearing a few feet away. A gnarled tree also appears, which the Rajah tries to uproot. It sprouts a demonic head, and its branches become arms. Alarmed, the Rajah draws his sword, but as soon as the point touches the trunk, the tree turns into a man who chases the Rajah until the latter turns and pushes him, causing him to disappear in a puff of smoke. The Rajah gets back on his feet and a woman appears. Instantly smitten, the Rajah encourages her to sit on his lap. Several more women appear and throw him to the ground repeatedly, prior to chasing him. Finally, a platoon of female soldiers leads him to an execution block, but he successfully wrestles the executioner to the ground… or rather his bolster, as it was all a dream. He looks around, knocks his head, heaves a sigh of relief and goes back to bed.
On a technical level, the film is rather less interesting, being essentially a return to now-familiar basics. The butterfly is dangling on a wire, the various appearances and metamorphoses and even the scene changes are achieved through jump-cuts (even though Méliès had already been experimenting with more sophisticated dissolves and superimpositions). That said, the timing of the cuts is as expertly judged as ever - especially when the Rajah begins to throw a punch at his would-be executioner, only for his fist to end up connecting with the bolster.