Manuel

Movies

Whimsical Illusions
The Assistant
In this hand-colored short, a magician and his assistant do a series of magic tricks, including making potted plants appear, among others. Melies played the magician, and the actor Manuel played his assistant.
Tribulations; or, The Misfortunes of a Cobbler
The Farrier
The Merchant, the Farrier, and the Roman accompany a mysterious woman into a magical cave full of terrors and wonders.
Pauvre John ou les Aventures d'un buveur de whisky
John, who loves the bottle a little too much, is one of a group of sightseers. Too drunk to follow the party, the reeling drunkard remains on the site of a ruin where he starts having hallucinations.
Ali Barbouyou and Ali Bouf, In Oil
Ali Bouf-à-l'huile
This film from 1907 is sadly incomplete as it's only available in a two-minute fragment. The opening title card explains that a painter has just finished his work when his assistant comes in and accidentally drinks varnish. The film then picks up as the painter goes haywire and sends the assistant into the painting.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Ives, a fisherman
The film, a parody of the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, follows a fisherman, Yves, who dreams of traveling by submarine to the bottom of the ocean, where he encounters both realistic and fanciful sea creatures, including a chorus of naiads played by dancers from the Théâtre du Châtelet. Méliès's design for the film includes cut-out sea animals patterned after Alphonse de Neuville's illustrations for Verne's novel.
The Eclipse: Courtship of the Sun and Moon
supervisor da turma
In this film, Méliès concocts a combination fairy- and morality tale about the foolishness of trying to look too deeply into the workings of an unstable and inscrutable universe. At a medieval school, an old astronomer begins to teach a class of young men, all armed with telescopes, about the art of scrutinising an imminent eclipse. When a mechanical clock strikes twelve, all the young men rush to the windows and fix their telescopes on the heavens.
A Desperate Crime
Chief Bandit
A man is murdered and the killer brought to justice by guillotine. This film is partly lost.