THE IMPERCEPTIBLE TRANSMUTATIONS (1904)
aka Les transmutations imperceptibles
Article 4711 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-17-2014
Directed by Georges Melies
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Magic trick short

A princely magician performs magic with a cardboard tube, making a dancing girl and a princess appear and disappear.

I wouldn’t exactly call the transmutations on hand here imperceptible, but I imagine Melies had to work hard to come up with a real variety of titles for all of the magic trick shorts he’s done. This one is fairly minor; it mostly consists of making the characters appear and disappear in the tube or making the dancing girl and the princess appear in each other’s place. It moves quickly and is very typical of Melies’s magic shorts.