THE COOK IN TROUBLE (1904)
aka Sorcellerie culinaire
Article 5192 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-25-2016
Directed by Georges Melies
Featuring Georges Melies
Country: France
What it is: Comic curse

When a cook refuses to spare a crumb for an old beggar, the latter reveals himself to be a magician and places a nightmarish curse on the cook…

I don’t know about you, but there’s two things I always associate with the work of Melies – dancing girls and tumbling imps. Those partial to the former would be better off with one of his other shorts. Those who prefer the latter have hit the jackpot here; once the curse gets underway, there’s no end to the tumbling imp action here. They even have the ability to change color; if you get tired of the standard black tumbling imp, they’ll change to the new-style white tumbling imps. Still, under either color they’ll wreck your kitchen, ruin your cooking, and probably stuff you in the pot, but that’s what tumbling imps do. All in all, it’s another moderately entertaining Melies short.