Le Locataire diabolique (1909)
Directed by Georges Méliès

Film Review

For this, one of his later films, Georges Méliès revisits the career that earned his reputation before he turned to filmmaking, that of the stage conjuror.  Much of the film is taken up with an elaborate conjuring trick, with Méliès (playing the part of the diabolical lodger) pulling an improbable assortment of large objects out of a small travelling bag.  This is a variation on the kind of conjuring act which Méliès would have been familiar with, except that the ability to use special effects (multiple exposure and trick splicing) allows him to make the illusion even more fantastic.  The film is in colour - meaning that each frame of film was coloured by hand (no mean feat for a film of this length) - and this adds greatly to its sense of energy and zany appeal.

Film Synopsis

An old man with the air of a learned professor arrives at a boarding house and asks the concierge for a room.  It so happens there is a room available, but it is unfurnished and in the process of being decorated.  No matter, the man decides to take the room, and once the concierge has departed he bundles the decorator out of the window and starts to unpack.  From his small bag the new lodger whips out a table cloth, underneath which a table appears from nowhere.  Then he pulls a large trunk from the bag, from which he proceeds to extract the rest of his furniture - an armchair, a fireplace, a piano, some mirrors and several paintings, the latter of which stick magically to the walls when thrown up into the air. 

Finally, having laid the table for dinner, the lodger produces his entire family from the trunk and they all sit down to eat.  When the concierge later shows up to collect the rent the lodger frightens him away by bringing all of his furniture to life.  As the concierge runs off to find a policeman, the lodger hastily packs away all of his belongings in the trunk once more, before taking out his little bag and placing the trunk inside.  He then pulls a ladder from his bag and uses this to make a quick getaway before the concierge returns with a representative of the law and unwittingly brings the ceiling down when he attacks the one of item furniture the lodger left behind...