This is How Movies Should Be Made

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

This trick film about transformations -- a woman in fancy dress opens a window and gradually transforms the frame into a mass of blooming flowers -- was directed by Gaston Velle. However, the modern viewer might be more interested in the fact that it was photographed by Segundo de Chomon, who would become the go-to guy for this sort of film. This sort of cinematic magic trick was popular at the time and its leading exponent was Georges Melies. De Chomon would drive him out of business with the better financial resources of his employer.It's not as good as Melies, but it is clearly different. The woman in this one bows in an old-fashioned, charming manner to the audience. Melies was all about the vivacity of his performance. This film also benefits, at least in the version I saw, in being a well-preserved and elaborately colored copy. It was almost certainly done by a stencil process.