Sorcellerie culinaire (1904)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Georges Méliès

Genre:

Short | Comedy | Fantasy

Plot:

A cook has his hands full with three mischievous devils, who pop in and out of his kitchen.

Plot Keywords:

Cook | Kitchen | Mischief | Magician

Cast

Georges Méliès

Also Known As:

Culinary Sorcery (International: English title) (informal literal title)
The Cook in Trouble (USA)

Runtime:

USA:4 min

Country:

France

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Company:

Georges Méliès

For Méliès, a pretty typical film

This short silent film is part of the DVD collection entitled "The Magic of Méliès" and is the fourth volume of THE MOVIES BEGIN series from Kino Video. Unlike copies of Méliès' films that are posted on the internet, the prints for these short films are exceptionally crisp and clean and feature (with the exception of this film) wonderful musical scores. Oddly, though, is that aside from a few films such as THE BLACK IMP and THE IMPOSSIBLE VOYAGE, most of the shorts chosen for this DVD are actually not among the best of Méliès' films--having a strong tendency to show is "stagy" material as opposed to the films that have elaborate sets and plots. In particular, my favorites such as BARBE-BLEUE and LE VOYAGE DANS LE LUNE (his most famous film) are not on this DVD.

This particular short is kind of cute and it's about a cook who is being terrorized by little imps created by an angry sorcerer. The sorcerer sicks these mischievous creatures on the poor cook and they make his life miserable--with lots of slapstick jumping and falling and chasing. Not exactly deep stuff and far from his best, this is still an interesting and entertaining film after more than 100 years.