THE UNTAMABLE WHISKERS (1904)
aka Le roi du maquillage
Article 4298 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-28-2013
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: France
What it is: Trick short

A magician draws caricatures of bearded men on a blackboard, and then magically changes into those characters.

This is Melies demonstrating a single special effect repeated over and over; it basically demonstrates a crossfade being used to change one character into another. It’s one of his more focused trick shorts, and I suspect what he was demonstrating here was the technique of having these things happening against a fully decorated background instead of just a black area. It’s not one of his best works, but it’s mildly amusing.