Willie's Magic Wand Explained

Willie's Magic Wand
Director:Walter R. Booth
Studio:Charles Urban Trading Company
Runtime:2 mins 45 secs extent
Country:United Kingdom
Language:Silent

Willie's Magic Wand is a 1907 British silent comic trick film, directed by Walter R. Booth, featuring a young boy terrorising the household with his father's magic wand.

Similar to "earlier trick films The Haunted Curiosity Shop and Undressing Extraordinary (both 1901)", this is, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "essentially a series of [loosely linked] special-effects set pieces", but "the print in the National Film and Television Archive is incomplete, omitting amongst other things a come-uppance where Willie is punished for his misdemeanours by being turned into a girl, thus depriving him of more than one magic wand".

A clip from the film is featured in Paul Merton's interactive guide to early British silent comedy How They Laughed on the BFI website.[1] [2] [3]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Willie's Magic Wand . Michael . Brooke . BFI Screenonline Database . 2011-04-24.
  2. Web site: Willie's Magic Wand . https://web.archive.org/web/20121023235720/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/26683 . dead . 2012-10-23 . BFI Film & TV Database . 2011-04-24.
  3. Web site: How They Laughed . Paul . Merton . BFI Screenonline . 2011-04-24.