THE MAGIC EXTINGUISHER (1901)
Article 4977 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-3-2015
Directed by James Williamson
Featuring Sam Dalton
Country: UK
What it is: Magic trick film

A magician makes animals disappear and reappear with a large cone.

Here’s another imitation of the Melies magic trick shorts, minus Melies of course. Unfortunately, that also means it’s missing Melies’s wonderful backdrops and his exuberant theatricality, and though Sam Dalton makes a game effort at the magician here, he doesn’t quite have the charisma of his model. There is a bit of novelty in the fact that living animals are used as part of the illusions, but that’s about all that really sets this one apart.