Magic Bricks
A charming example of the Pathe stencil system of colour films, also using superimposition.
From the archive
A conjurer in Chinese garb jumps out of a box that's about two feet wide and six inches high. He conjures an assistant from the same box plus a young woman, who then disappears into the box. He continuously picks up the box and shows us the empty inside. Next, he removes many small boxes from the larger box, stacks them on top of each other after making a base row of six or seven. The stacked boxes (magic bricks) become a movie screen, revealing the image of a laughing child. The magician knocks the bricks down with his wand and the child disappears, one row at a time. The conjurer has the bricks fly back to re-form the screen, and we see the Pathé Frères cock. Written by jhailey Director: Segundo de Chomón Country: France Production Co: Pathé Frères VERY impressive for its time 13 April 2003 | by Squirrel-5 This film has special effects which for it's time are very impressive. Some if it is easily explainable with the scenes played backwards but the overlay of moving images on an object on film is surprisingly well done given that this film was made more than 94 years ago.
Why this is free to watch
Magic Bricks (1904) is hosted by the Internet Archive as a public-domain or openly licensed work, which means its copyright has expired, lapsed, or was released by the rights holder. The uploader declared an explicit licence, linked in the source panel. Nitrate streams the file directly from the Internet Archive and hosts no video itself.
- Director
- Gaston Velle
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