The Wizard, the Prince and the Good Fairy (1900) User Reviews

Wizard, Prince, Good Fairy

[Michael_Elliott · 28 March 2008]

Wizard, The Prince And The Good Fairy, The (1900)

*** (out of 4)

aka Le Sorcier, le prince et le bon genie

A Prince goes to see a Wizard and falls victim to several magic tricks. This is a pretty good little film from Melies who has plenty to work with here. The Prince and the Wizard eventually get into a fight and the Prince goes to kill him but the Wizard uses his magic to avoid any serious damage. The Prince loses his cool even more until a Fairy shows up to help teach the Wizard a lesson. The special effects aren't anything we haven't seen before but the film is charming from start to finish and Melies does a great job at creating this fantasy world.

a tale of love and tomfoolery

[Churlie_Chitlin · 7/10 · 12 January 2015]

Our story begins as Karl Marx the Grey, immersed in the act of reading one of Baudelaire's raunchier tomes, is visited by an actor from the set of the Lumière brothers' (eventually abandoned) production of The Three Musketeers. Mistaking Marx for a pimp, d'Artagnan offers a sack of coins for the procurement of a woman.

Marx decides that Baudelaire is boring anyway, makes the book vanish, and decides to have some fun with the hapless thespian. He creates a woman out of thin air whom d'Artagnan immediately tries to molest. However, just before he can lock her in an embrace, Marx banishes the poor girl to the eternal void from which she came.

This sends d'Artagnan into a rage. He stomps around the room gesticulating wildly and draws his sword. He makes several attempts to skewer the father of socialism, but none succeed. Exasperated, he takes a final swipe at the puckish old man, who disappears into a puff of smoke.

At this point, several human-sized Punch and Judy dolls walk into the room and perform an ancient druid ritual to transform d'Artagnan into a Turkish prince.

Now all but utterly defeated and extremely uncomfortable in his new clothes, our hero falls to his knees and prays for divine assistance, which comes in the form of the Queen of Clubs who appears before him. She waves her staff around, which frightens the Punch and Judy dolls, sending them fleeing for the corners of the room. She summons d'Artagnan's lover from the void, who appears in a wedding dress, and then gives him his own spiffy new set of threads.

As our happy couple walk off into the backdrop to be wed, Karl Marx materializes again, but is immediately caged by the Queen of Clubs, quashing socialism in France forever.

THE END

All in all, a nice little movie, but it's a bittersweet treasure knowing that d'Artagnan never made it back to the set of the Lumière film and a potential classic had to be abandoned.

A Bad Choice

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 11 November 2017]

A prince comes to a magician and pays him considerable cash to produce a beautiful girl for him. She comes but soon disappears. The prince goes berserk, trying to kill the magician. But the old guy has many tricks up his sleeve. Soon a fairy comes and straightens things out. It doesn't end well for the magic man.

There Must Be More to the Story Than The're Telling

[boblipton · 10/10 · 13 March 2008]

The prince breaks into the sorcerer's home and tries to do him in, to little effect. Melies uses his wonderful combination of stage and film magic, until a bunch of women -- presumably a band of good fairies -- come to the aid of the prince. You have some very fluid story-telling, wonderful effects and excellent acting for the period.

Melies and his competitor across the Channel, Walter Booth, would tell variations of this story many time, Booth in THE MAGIC SWORD and Melies would repeat it, most elaborately, in FEE CARABOSSE. However, there must be something wrong with me: I keep rooting for the bad guys!

This is one of the many previously lost or infrequently seen Melies pictures that have been made available by Serge Bromberg, David Shepherd and a myriad of other hands in the newly issued DVD set GEORGES MELIES: FIRST WIZARD OF CINEMA. Required viewing for anyone interested in the history of movies ..... and a lot of fun.