The X-Ray Fiend

Some films open doors to narrative. Others to drama. Others still, to laughter. But The X-Ray Fiend, released in 1897, does something even more singular: it opens the door to the invisible, inviting late 19th-century viewers to see-with the eyes of fantasy-what reality had previously kept hidden. In just 44 seconds, George Albert Smith achieves a remarkable feat: fusing science, humor, and visual effect into an early and visionary visual allegory, making it one of the very first trick films in cinema history-and among the first to use image overlay to create narrative illusion.

The film presents a well-dressed couple sitting side by side when, suddenly, a "technician" appears with an X-ray machine and points it at them. Instantly, their bodies transform into skeletons-first the woman, then the man. They continue their gestures-the skeletal woman with her umbrella, the man still flirting-as if their bones had unveiled a new layer of identity and desire. Then, just as quickly, everything returns to normal. Short, direct, and ingenious.

At its core, The X-Ray Fiend is a burlesque scientific fantasy. In 1895, X-rays had just been discovered by Wilhelm Röntgen. In less than two years, they were already being used as aesthetic and dramatic inspiration in film-a pace of artistic appropriation that still astonishes. Smith, with his sensitivity to the magical and the illusory, understood that cinema was more than a window to the world-it was a tool to reveal what the naked eye could not.

Technically, the film is notable. Smith employs an ingenious and pioneering editing effect: he first films the actors in action wearing their original costumes, then shoots them again-repeating the same gestures-wearing painted skeleton costumes. In editing, he stitches these shots together to create the illusion of transformation-one of the earliest visual tricks in cinema. The result is rudimentary, yes, but absolutely revolutionary in its ambition. Smith anticipates, decades ahead of time, an entire lineage of visual effects based on photographic composition-from Méliès to modern CGI, there is a direct echo in this first manipulation of the cinematic image.

But what captivates most about The X-Ray Fiend is not just the technique-it's the idea behind it: cinema's ability to unveil. The film plays with the voyeuristic gaze, the desire to see beyond the clothes, beyond appearances-into the interior. It's a small gesture of scientific mischief, but also an aesthetic provocation: what if we could, through a lens, see the essence of everything?

And there's humor-a strange, almost macabre humor-that foreshadows cinema's long fascination with skeletons as both symbols of death and sources of laughter. After all, a dancing body reduced to animated bones becomes both comic and unsettling. This duality would be explored for decades in cartoons, comedies, and horror films alike.

George Albert Smith, a key figure in Britain's "Brighton School" of early cinema, reveals here his precocious genius. In The X-Ray Fiend, he doesn't just entertain-he expands the very boundaries of what cinema can be. More than a technical curiosity, this film is a miniature revolution of the imagination: the first time cinema projects, quite literally, the invisible.

With The X-Ray Fiend, cinema stops being just a medium for recording the visible and becomes a magic mirror for scientific imagination, hidden desire, and technical fantasy. Forty-four seconds that foretold decades of tricks, illusions, and visual wonders. From this moment on, nothing on screen would be merely what it seemed.

And that-like the X-ray itself-is precisely what cinema teaches us to see.

Original review in portuguese on substack.

X-Ray Fiend, The (1897)

*** (out of 4)

Forgotten sci-fi/comedy about a man and woman who are flirting with one another when another man comes up to them with an x-ray machine, zaps them and turns them into skeletons. This "trick" movie was clearly influenced by the work of Georges Melies but it still has enough charm to make it worth viewing. The interesting thing about this film is that it features x-rays not too long after they were actually discovered so we have a very early "idea" of what they are and how to use them. Obviously the way they're used here makes the film science fiction but at the same time it's a fun idea and one that makes for some good entertainment. At only 45-seconds the film doesn't last too long so don't expect any type of long-running story. Instead, we get a simple joke but the effects are nicely done and in the end this is certainly worth watching (on YouTube of course).

There really isn't enough to say for a review, si ce its only 45 seconds long, but its definitely worth watching. The skeleton costumes were pretty amusing.

This very early film by British auteur George Albert Smith is essentially a single 44 second 'joke': a courting couple are exposed to X-rays, but love prevails as their skeletons continue to cavort until the gentleman goes a titch to far, prompting his lady-friend, now restored to natural opaqueness, to get up and leave (after delivering a mild slap of indignation). The film is a whimsical bit of cinema history, playing on the public fascination with X-rays, which had only been discovered by Wilhelm Röntgen two years prior and showcasing Smith's 'state of the art' special effects (nicely executed jump cuts). The film is a product of its Victorian times as the 'leg bones' of the skeletonised women are demurely painted on her dress rather than on her *gasp* legs. Try to watch with the eyes of a 19th century viewer and imagine their astonishment as the lovebirds suddenly become skeletons.

In addition to being a trick film, "The X-Ray Fiend" could be added to the list of what historians of early British film have called "courtship comedies". Reportedly, Alfred Moul and Robert W. Paul may've started this genre with "The Soldier's Courtship" (1896). Also in 1897, George Albert Smith, the maker of this film, made the courtship comedy "Hanging Out the Clothes" (see my review of that film for further discussion). In these films, a couples' canoodling is interrupted (by the X-Ray camera in this one) and someone is knocked around a bit--what film historians call a "punitive ending". Courtship comedies generally were set in a pastoral or park setting, but the costume trick in "The X-Ray Fiend" required filming in a studio against a black background; however, the film does retain the park bench.

The trick film was an even more popular genre of early cinema. The tricks in this one are two substitution-splices: the film was cut to switch the actors' costumes to and from skeletons, but make it appear that the change is a result of the X-Ray camera exposing the couples' skeletons. This editing trick had been invented a couple years earlier with motion pictures' first edit in "The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots". Georges Méliès and Pathé used it in trick films as early as 1896 in "The Vanishing Lady" (Escamotage d'une dame au théâtre Robert Houdin) and "Turn-of-the-Century Barber" (Le barbier fin de siècle), respectively.

The narrative device for the trick is X-rays, which was newsy at the time--since physicist Wilhelm Röntgen has recently been the first to systematically study X-rays, so "The X-Ray Fiend" is of some historical interest in that respect, too. Also in 1897, John Macintyre was the first to make scientific X-ray films ("X-Ray Cinematography of Frog's Legs"). "The X-Ray Fiend" may be parodying Macintyre's footage. Additionally, the X-ray camera makes "The X-Ray Fiend" an early self-referential film, as it's a film about a kind of filming.

Yet, simply put, this is just 46 feet of broad humor and unconvincing skeleton costumes. Nevertheless, George Albert Smith was one of early cinema's most innovative pioneers; in some ways, he was more innovative than the more well-known Méliès and Edwin S. Porter. After this film, Smith went on to introduce or develop various filmic techniques and narrative innovations, including: multi-shot films, close-ups, point-of-view shots, extended scene dissection and match-on-action cuts, insert shots, parallel action, title cards, masking, multiple-exposure photography and Kinemacolor. Smith was key to developing film narrative, technique and grammar.