He_who_lurks A couple of Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomón's films contained elements which were previously used by his competitor, Georges Méliès, in many earlier films, but were used for a different effect. Having seen all of Méliès's available output, I should know what I'm talking about. Here, Chomón borrows the legendary french filmmaker's ideas of dancing midgets appearing in place of eggs (which had been used in Méliès's "The Dancing Midget" from 1902). The midgets do dance here, but instead of the egg exploding to reveal the midget, the magician (Julienne Mathieu, Chomón's wife) opens up the eggs and the dancers come out. Essentially, this idea is much better then what Méliès did.As many of Chomón's work is, this film survives colored and looks pretty good. It is kinda repetitive but the dances are interesting to watch. The superimposition work is excellent and isn't shakey one bit--whenever Méliès did superimposing in his films, the superimposed bit of film would shake a lot. Since there's none of that here the effect makes the film very believable to watch.(Note: A year later in 1908, Chomón did a film called "Microscopic Dancer" which also starred Julienne Mathieu and, from the title, I'm guessing it was a complete ripoff of the 1902 film, although it appears to be lost).

MartinHafer Segundo de Chomón is really working at his best in "Easter Eggs". While the film might have a few rough edges where he started and stopped the camera, much of this was done rather seamlessly and it's one of his better efforts. It didn't hurt that the nice hand-stenciled work by the women at the Pathé studio's assembly line did a terrific job of painting portions of the film to make it appear colored--or at least partially colored.Julienne Mathieu (the director's wife) stars in this one. She walks out on a nice little stage and begins making giant eggs appear out of no where. Then, she opens each one to reveal dancers who do a nice little dance in costume. The tricks are really lovely and the only complaint I have is that at four minutes, perhaps it went on too long and might have improved with a couple less dances. Still, it's an incredible film to see today and ample proof that some real artists were at work in the early cinema.