Cagliostro, aventurier, chimiste et magicien (1910) [N/A]
Featuring:
Jean Jacquinet, Jacques Normand, Stacia Napierkowska
Written by:
Camille de Morlhon
Directed by:
Camille de Morlhon, Gaston Velle
Release Date:
April 1, 1910
Original Title:
Cagliostro, aventurier, chimiste et magicien
Ratings / Certifications:
N/A
Runtime: 15
The first cinematographic adaptation of the infamous Count Cagliostro.
The picture opens with Cagliostro in the laboratory of the alchemist, Athlotas, his instructor in magic. The latter predicts to his pupil that his fate is interwoven with that of a gypsy girl, Lorenza. Cagliostro first meets her in a safe, where he picks a quarrel with the Chevalier d'Oisement, who is conversing with her and wounds him in the duel that ensues. Lorenza tries to intervene between the duelists, but Cagliostro by mesmeric influence forces her to be still, and after carries her to his home, where seeing that she is an excellent hypnotic subject he compels her to act as a medium. Lorenza predicts the French revolution and the death of Marie Antoinette. Cagliostro, aided by Lorenza gains celebrity and repute, and is commanded to give an exhibition of his magic before the King, Louis XVI, and his Queen, Marie Antoinette. The latter, delighted with the strange wonderful things, requests to be allowed to read her own future in the crystal. Cagliostro refuses, but is compelled to obey the Queen's commands, and raising the glass to her eyes she reads in it the story of her doom. The King, wild with anger, orders him to be seized, and at the same moment the chief of the police appears to denounce him. The Chevalier d'Oisement had not forgotten Cagliostro, and after obtaining proof of his magical practices had finally accused him to the chief of the police as a sorcerer. In his cell Cagliostro is haunted by visions of the marriage of Lorenza to the Chevalier, and this remarkable man, who really loved the gypsy girl passionately, seeks relief in death by means of a poison ring rather than wait for the judicial sentence of death, which in that prejudicial period he felt sure would be his fate.
