Les cartes vivantes

This score of 8 is really relative to other films by director Georges Méliès. If any of his work is compared to his contemporaries, even his worst films would probably merit a 9 because they are so much more complex, fun and timeless compared to the fare of the day. This film is about a magician (played by Méliès), and this isn't surprising as he was, before moving to films, a stage magician himself. The magician pulls out a small playing card and shows it to the audience. Since it is so small, he magically increases its size several times. Ultimately, he makes the tiny card become about 6 to 7 feet high AND the characters of a queen and king become REAL (through the use of stop-motion and slow dissolves). This is very entertaining and amazing because no others were able to do such brilliant camera tricks.

If you want to see this film online, go to Google and type in "Méliès" and then click the video button for a long list of his films that are viewable without special software.

Living Playing Cards, The (1905)

*** (out of 4)

aka Les Cartes vivantes

Extremely entertaining and fun film from the French master has him playing (what else) a magician who puts a plane piece of paper on a stool and magically turns it into cards. He then takes the trick even further by having the Queen and King walk off the paper. This here is certainly one of the director's most known films as the tricks are pure magic even though it's obvious to see how they're done. What makes this film work so well is the fact that Melies, the actor, really is charming and sells everything we're seeing. He has that certain grace about him that draws you to whatever he's doing and whoever is playing the King is also a real hoot. The final trick in the film is priceless and makes this one of the more memorable films from the director.

"The Living Playing Cards" (_Les Cartes vivantes_) is what cinema is all about -- *magic!* Méliès himself plays The Magician, and he is truly amazing as he performs card tricks on stage, acting well as he asks the audience if a card he has drawn is "our" card, then reacts with disappointment as he realizes it is not, but then recovering with aplomb as he attempts to make up for his error by outdoing himself with each new card trick, culminating in his not just making a life-sized card come to life, but finally ... well, that would be telling!

Méliès once wrote that a film director must be prepared to work not only as the director, but as the writer, the camera operator, and an actor as well, if necessary. He was all of those things and did them all extremely well. Now if only I could figure out how he pulled off that last card trick....

I love the "Alice in Wonderland" feel to this one - the idea of bring to life the playing cards. I just wished it was longer - the Queen lasted longer than the King (he took off the King outfit too fast) but otherwise a pretty neat little film.

8.5/10

While the ideas are mostly simple ones, this film packs several skillfully done visual effects into a short running time. Like a number of Méliès features, it starts off with a stage magician doing tricks, here using playing cards, and then gets more involved as it goes along. It works pretty well because of a lot of good camera tricks, almost all of which are done with care. Many of the visual effects are nearly seamless, and are fairly impressive given the limited resources available at the time. There isn't anything really spectacular in this one, and many of the features that Méliès made are more complex and have more action than this does, but this little movie scores pretty well in terms of its craftsmanship.