THE CLOCK-MAKER’S DREAM (1904)
aka Le reve de l’horloger
Article 4059 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-18-2012
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: France
What it is: Trick film

A clock-maker falls asleep and dreams his clocks have transformed into women.

Some of Melies’s shorts are still pretty fun to watch. However, some of them really can only be appreciated in respect to the time they were made and the novelty of the special effects they were exhibiting. It seems a great deal of care went into this one in terms of making the special effects flow as smoothly as possible, but the lack of anything resembling a story and the somewhat static nature of the tableaus that result leaves us with a somewhat dull short here. It’s similar in some ways to THE BALLET-MASTER’S DREAM, only with less movement. Fortunately, the running time of three minutes keeps this one from overstaying its welcome.