Jehanne d'Alcy

This 1952 film by Georges Franju is a biographical film about cinematic illusionist Georges Méliès. It features Méliès’s widow, Jeanne d’Alcy, as herself, and their son, André, as his own father. LE GRAND MÉLIÈS, like Franju’s Louis Feuillade tribute, JUDEX, is a revealing homage to one of the director’s idols.

The plot follows King Edward VII and President Armand Fallières dreaming of building a tunnel under the English Channel.

Using every known means of transportation, several savants from the Geographic Society undertake a journey through the Alps to the Sun which finishes under the sea.

Two men in a cave perform magic.

Professor Barbenfouillis and five of his colleagues from the Academy of Astronomy travel to the Moon aboard a rocket propelled by a giant cannon. Once on the lunar surface, the bold explorers face the many perils hidden in the caves of the mysterious planet.

Professor Barbenfouillis and five of his colleagues from the Academy of Astronomy travel to the Moon aboard a rocket propelled by a giant cannon. Once on the lunar surface, the bold explorers face the many perils hidden in the caves of the mysterious planet.

A young woman becomes the eighth wife of the wealthy Bluebeard, whose first seven wives have died under mysterious circumstances.

A divinely inspired peasant woman becomes an army captain for France and then is martyred after she is captured.

A series of fantastical wrestling matches.

A fairy godmother magically turns Cinderella's rags to a beautiful dress, and a pumpkin into a coach. Cinderella goes to the ball, where she meets the Prince - but will she remember to leave before the magic runs out? Méliès based the art direction on engravings by Gustave Doré. First known example of a fairy-tale adapted to film, and the first film to use dissolves to go from one scene to another.

A man digging inside an Egyptian tomb chops up a mummy, then resurrects the woman inside it.

A devil wearing bat-like wings and brandishing a trident dances around a giant pot, conjuring forth flame from his trident to lit a fire beneath the pot. After the devil works the fire with bellows, an angelic woman emerges from the pot. The devil and the pot vanish as the woman performs a dance, waving about her diaphanous sleeves until she conjures forth another fire, then she rises amongst the smoke into the air.

St. Anthony is tempted by visions of women, including one that is transformed from the image of Jesus Christ Himself!

Showing Pygmalion at work in his studio on the statue of Galatea, who, on being completed, comes to life. He attempts to clasp her to his arms, when the bust leaves the body and crossing the room mocks at him standing with the lower portion of her body in his hands. Further startling illusions are seen in this most beautiful picture.

An astronomer has a terrifying dream.

Mephistopheles demands that Faust kill Marguerite.

A woman arrives home after the ball. Her servant helps her undress and bathe.

A man has a fantastical nightmare involving, among other things, a grinning malevolent moon.

Le Manoir du diable or The House of the Devil, released in the United States as The Haunted Castle and in Britain as The Devil's Castle, is an 1896 French short silent film directed by Georges Méliès. The film tells the story of an encounter with the Devil and various attendant phantoms. It is intended to evoke amusement and wonder from its audiences, rather than fear. However, because of its themes and characters, it has been considered to technically be the first horror film, as well as potentially the first vampire film. The film opens with a large bat flying into a medieval castle, circling a room, and then suddenly changing into the Devil. Producing a cauldron, Mephistopheles conjures up a young girl and various supernatural creatures in an effort to scare two cavaliers, eventually succeeding in causing one to flee. Ultimately the remaining cavalier is confronted face-to-face by the Devil before reaching for and brandishing a large crucifix, which causes the Devil to vanish.

Georges Méliès makes a woman disappear, then reappear.