The Merry Frolics of Satan (French: Les Quat’Cents Farces du diable, literally The Four Hundred Tricks of the Devil) is a 1906 French silent film directed by and starring Georges Méliès. The film, an updated comedic adaptation of the Faust legend, follows the adventures of an engineer who barters with the Devil for superhuman powers and is forced to face the consequences. It was released by Méliès’s Star Film Company and is numbered 849–870 in its catalogues, where it is advertised as a grande pièce fantastique en 35 tableaux.
Plot:
An English engineer and inventor, William Crackford, is visited in his workshop by a messenger, who tells him that the famous alchemist Alcofrisbas is interested in selling him a powerful talisman. Arriving in Alcofrisbas’s mysterious laboratory, where they are attacked and confused by magically moving and transforming pieces of furniture, Crackford and his servant John explain to the alchemist that they hope to make a high-speed trip around the world. Alcofrisbas promises to make the trip possible. With the help of his seven laboratory assistants, Alcofrisbas makes a batch of large magical pills for the engineer and demonstrates that, by hurling a pill upon the ground, Crackford can have any wish gratified. Crackford, in his excitement, does not read the terms of the contract he is asked to sign, and so remains blissfully unaware that he has just sold his soul to the Devil. When Crackford and John leave, “Alcofrisbas” resumes his true identity—Mephistopheles—and his “assistants” are revealed to be the Seven Deadly Sins.
Crackford comes home to dinner, where his wife and daughters are waiting for him. Wanting to try out the pills, he throws one to the floor. Immediately, two servants in livery burst out of a trunk, opening it to reveal more servants and a smaller trunk, who open it to reveal still more servants and another trunk, and so on; the process goes on until the dining room is full of servants, who load all of Crackford’s furniture, as well as Crackford himself and his family, into the trunks. In the blink of an eye the trunks become a miniature train for the family, driven by John the servant. Crackford’s high-speed tour has begun.
The tiny train wends its way out of the city, meeting with ridicule from onlookers. Arriving in the countryside, most of the train and all of Crackford’s family are lost in an accident with a collapsing bridge; Crackford, caring only for his world tour, continues on undismayed. Crackford and John stop at a village inn, the landlord of which is again Mephistopheles in disguise. The two travelers find their attempts to eat confounded by magical disappearances and transformations; in despair, they go to the kitchen to eat with the servants, only to be disrupted by apes and demons in a farcical pandemonium of appearances and disappearances using every possible entrance and exit.
Fleeing out of the inn, the travelers make an escape in a horse and buggy, which Mephistopheles promptly transforms into a magical carriage made out of stars and comets and drawn by a bizarre mythological horse. Mephistopheles, following the travelers in an automobile, drives them up the slope of Mount Vesuvius and directly into an eruption. In a burst of lava and flames, the infernal carriage is shot into the sky and makes a voyage through space, flying past stars and planets. Colliding with a thunderstorm, the carriage bursts apart; Crackford and John tumble through space and crash through the ceiling of a dining room. Just as Crackford thinks he is about to get a bite to eat at last, Mephistopheles appears to fulfill the terms of the contract. Crackford is led into the Underworld, where gleeful demons turn him on a spit over the infernal flames.
Georges Méliès [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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