A Mesmerian Experiment (1905) Georges Méliès

This early silent film was released by creator/director Georges Méliès in France circa 1905.

It a bearded wizard and helpers fill a barrel with several buckets of water. He then somehow starts a magical fire in the barrel and after the flames removes several dresses. His helpers string up the dresses in the background and ladies appear wearing the dresses and do a little dance.

He throws a new dress up and another lady appears and leads the ladies dancing very contorted and does backflips. The old wizard makes then disappear and the gather the dresses back into the barrel. Lastly he dumps the barrel and instead of dresses several ducks fall out!