TIT FOR TAT (1904)
aka Une bonne farce avec ma tete
Article 4838 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-1-2015
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: France
What it is: Farcical magic trick short

A magician makes a duplicate of his head and then torments it by blowing smoke in its face. But his duplicate head is not going to take this lying down…

Here’s another of Melies’s magic trick shorts, though this one is a little different. He keeps it quite short, and it’s mainly focused on a trick with a story line that more or less illustrates the English title of the short. The moral here is obvious; if you play tricks on your own head, you fully deserve to reap what you sow. It’s minor Melies, but it’s enjoyable on its own terms.