The Flicker Alley DVD "Georges Méliès: Encore New Discoveries (1896-1911)" misidentified a partial hand-colored print of the 1906 film "Alchimiste Parafaragaramus ou La cornue infernale" (The Mysterious Retort) as this film, "L'hallucination de l'alchimiste" (An Hallucinated Alchemist) from 1897, which continues to be considered a lost film.
A rocky sea voyage as reenacted by Georges Méliès.
A romantic couple are transformed into skeletons via X-Rays. The film combines two very recent innovations: Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of X-rays in 1895, and Georges Méliès' accidental realisation of the special-effects potential of the jump-cut in 1896.
Wintertime in Lyon. About a dozen people, men and women, are having a snowball fight in the middle of a tree-lined street. The cyclist coming along the road becomes the target of opportunity. He falls off his bicycle. He's not hurt, but he rides back the way he came, as the fight continues.
A woman arrives home after the ball. Her servant helps her undress and bathe.
Angelic and demonic serpentine dance from dawn of cinema. Hand-colored frame by frame. Lumière no. 765 or 765.1 (colorized, different dancer?).
A man has an encounter with several spooky apparitions in a castle that is evidently owned by the Devil.
A weary traveler stops at an inn along the way to get a good night's sleep, but his rest is interrupted by odd happenings when he gets to his room--beds vanishing and re-appearing, candles exploding, pants flying through the air and his shoes walking away by themselves.
[…] by shooting the fish in a globular bowl, the Lumières effectively use a fisheye lens, which offers distortions. The history of cinema has witnessed a struggle between the objective and subjective camera and the optically distorting lenses like the fisheye lens has been a powerful tool for the subjective camera. Here it is at the start.
Three military men, seen inside a fortification, are firing on an unseen enemy force. The call for reinforcements but ladders appear signalling the enemy is about to overrun this position.
Lasting for roughly 50 seconds, it shows the goodbyes of many passersby - first Europeans, then Palestinian Arabs, then Palestinian Jews - as a train leaves Jerusalem.
Swimmers jump into the water from the docks, as a small boat passes by.
Loïe Fuller performs a serpentine dance.
“This film is remarkable in several respects. In the first place, it is full life-size. Secondly, it is the only accurate recent portrait of the great inventor. The scene is an actual one, showing Mr. Edison in working dress engaged in an interesting chemical experiment in his great Laboratory. There is sufficient movement to lead the spectator through the several processes of mixing, pouring, testing, etc. as if he were side by side with the principal. The lights and shadows are vivid, and the apparatus and other accessories complete a startling picture that will appeal to every beholder.” (Edison Catalog)
Travellers, nomads and salesmen make their way along a dam next to the Nile.
Four young people throwing buckets of water at each other.
A short reenactment of a scene from Goethe's Faust.
Women wash clothes in a washhouse on the edge of a river.
