A Mesmerian Experiment (1905) User Reviews

When One Watches So Many, This Bit is Tiresome

[Hitchcoc · 4/10 · 16 November 2017]

Several men stand around a barrel. The proceed to pour what appears to be water into the barrel. The barrel catches fire and then goes out. They begin to retrieve dresses from the vat and hang them on an elaborate statue. The men leave and the dresses are filled by dancing girls who do a really boring dance. Melies seemed to love this dance stuff and frequently had his characters hoof it. There was just nothing remarkable about this.

Quite good for 1905

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 20 September 2011]

"A Mesmerian Experiment" was originally titled "Le Baquet de Mesmer" in French and it's another short from Georges Méliès. However, despite the title, it really has nothing to do with hypnosis (i.e., 'mesmerism'--named after the early hypnotist, Anton Mesmer).

Like so many of Méliès' films, this one finds him playing the role of a magician--a common thing since in real life he was a stage magician. Here he's heavily disguised with fake hair and a HUGE beard and a period costume. He makes a group of women appear and they dance about. Nothing is particularly noteworthy about their dancing. Then, he makes another lady appear and she does some amazing acrobatic dancing--all while wearing an outfit that sure makes this look impossible! No, this wasn't magic--she was just very, very limber! In the end, he does what any man would do in this situation--he turns them into ducks! All in all, an average to below average magical film for Méliès. I've seen at least 15 to 20 of his magical films (probably more) and he has done better. Still, this is quite good by the standards of 1905 and it is worth seeing.

Not Horrid But the Director Has Better

[Michael_Elliott · 25 August 2011]

Le baquet de Mesmer (1905)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

aka A Mesmerian Experiment

A magician (Georges Melies) pours some water into a large barrel and he sets it on fire and soon lovely ladies come out of it. The ladies line up and do a dance for the viewer before the magician puts them back into the barrel. A MESMERIAN EXPERIMENT is decent enough but I'd say it's only recommended to those, such as myself, who must see every available film from the master Melies. The one added benefit to be had here is that it's a good example of the hand tinting that happened every so often in these early movies. I was really impressed with the quality of the colors as they all looked quite good. The print was a tad bit faded but this really didn't take away from the color that still managed to shine through. The dance that the women do is fairly boring and even the magic tricks aren't nearly as good as we're used to seeing. Still, fans of Melies will want to check this out but new folks would be best served to watch one of his classics first.

Not Quite, But Good Anyway

[boblipton · 7/10 · 25 December 2009]

I don't quite see how the title of this film fits what goes on, which is one of Melies magic shorts: he fills a tub with water, sets it afire, douses it and draws ladies dresses from it which he and his assistants drape over statues who turn into young girls who proceed to dance a tap chorus. No hypnotism seems to be involved, except possibly with the audience, but Melies' free-standing magic acts are among his best works.

The particular print I saw also had the benefit of being one of the color-stencil productions that were popular at the time. The decomposition of the film seems to have caused the colors to run, but enough remains to liven up this film.

For me, any Melies is worth having and seeing, and this one seems to have been lost until a few months ago. More than good enough.

A Dance Routine

[Tornado_Sam · 30 July 2018]

According to the description in Méliès's Catalogue of Genuine and Original 'Star' Films, the magician character in here (played by Méliès) is supposed to be a scientist named Dr. Mesmer, so the film is named after this person. Despite the title, the scientist himself really isn't the main character though and doesn't appear for half of the film. Apparently, in the short he's conducting an experiment to produce dancing girls (called the 'Snow Flakes' according to the catalogue). He dumps water into a barrel, sets it on fire, and pulls out some dresses which are draped on statues. The statues then turn into the dancing girls and start dancing for the majority of the film, until later when the scientist reverses the operation. I suppose the magic element, while there, isn't really the main focus so it's probably not the greatest film to watch if you're new to the director. But it does have some coloring (probably stencil-color) and remains very watchable, as well as feeling different from Méliès's other magic movies of the time.