The Infernal Cauldron (1903)

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

"The Infernal Caldron" is not among the French film pioneer's best works in my opinion. It runs for 1.5 minutes and basically shows us the devil cooking all kinds of stuff including a woman. This has to be one of the earliest supernatural fantasy films, even if Méliès liked the subject of the Devil in his works. The only somewhat interesting thing I found were the effects and the strong contrast between the protagonists in terms of their blue and red color. I don't know why another devil arrives at the scene or why he jumps into the pot in the end, but the story is certainly not this film's biggest strength. A bit surprising to see this among Méliès most famous works. Not even the colors can save this one I guess. Worth a watch for silent film enthusiasts, but not for everybody else.

This film, "The Infernal Caldron" is a single-scene trick film by Georges Méliès, who made many such subjects, which creatively exploited cinematic techniques, mostly substitution splices and multiple-exposure photography. This film is the earliest one that I recall where the filmmaker used multiple exposures to create such indistinguishable ghostly images. I know that he had made ghosts or spirits with the technique before, such as in "A Fantastical Meal" (1900), as had other early filmmakers, but those ghosts that I've seen are distinguished as human looking—only fainter or more transparent in appearance than the living. The trick for the blurry ghost blobs in "The Infernal Caldron" was to alter the lens to go out of focus for their exposure. Méliès repeated the trick for his next film, "Apparitions" (Le Revenant)(1903).Additionally, this particular trick film remains appealing today because it's available in a vibrant hand-colored print. The color especially aids in making the fire red, as well as bringing attention to the décor and costumes. In the film, the director plays a demon who places people in a cauldron. The out-of-focus spirits fly out of the cauldron and then transform into fireballs. There are quite a few macabre little pictures among Méliès's surviving films, but this is one of my favorites.P.S. Many, if not most, of Méliès's films were offered to be hand-painted for exhibitors (for an additional fee). Most films from this era are lost, and many of the films that do survive and that were in color have lost their paint over time or only remain in prints that weren't colorized. An all-female staff headed by a Madame Thullier, reportedly, provided the color for all such Star Films, from 1896 or 1897 to 1910, as well as for other French studios. The coloring was done manually in an assembly-line procedure, film-by-film, frame-by-frame, with each laborer specializing in a certain color. Otherwise, some fairground exhibitors may have colored their own prints to cut costs. Later, Pathé's stencil process made coloring easier and more consistent (main source: Frazer, "Artificially Arranged Scenes").

Every fantasy/horror fan should check out this 1-minute short from pioneering French director Georges Méliès. Made the year after what many consider Méliès' masterpiece LE VOYAGE DANS LA LUNE (A TRIP TO THE MOON) and not nearly as elaborate or impressive as that work, this is still a great piece of film history no film fan will have a problem spending 60 seconds of their time viewing. Unlike most other shorts from the filmmaker, this one was also hand-tinted a variety of bold colors, which gives it a different look and feel than others from the same era. It starts with two green, pitchfork-holding demons in horned headdresses luring a woman into their castle, wrapping her in a sheet and then throwing her into a cauldron, which then erupts in flames. They then throw two others in. The second demon stirs the pot and then the lead demon (played by the director himself) summons each of the three individual spirits. Smoke and fire erupt from the cauldron as each spirit emerges and then floats around overhead. The painted castle backdrop is a simple but effective Gothic design, with just a few thrones and a couple of red demon masks on the walls, and the special effects are very good and have held up surprisingly well over time. Other than a few choppy jumps toward the end of this short as the spirits catch fire and turn to ash, it's a very cool and interesting short.

Infernal Boiling Pot, The (1903) *** (out of 4) aka Chaudron infernal, Le One of the director's most popular films features two demons kidnapping people and throwing them into a boiling pot of water so that the demons can steal their souls. This hand colored film is a real joy and contains all the magic and playfulness that has made the director a legend. It's easy to see why this would be one of the director's most popular films because the special effects are terrific even after all these years. When the spirits begin to fly through the air, these scenes look great as does the finale when the spirits go up in flames. The film runs just over a minute but contains plenty of nice laughs and it's a real treat for the eyes. The coloring done here is also very good and manages to add a lot to the film especially those red flames that are constantly coming up.