Waste of time

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Best movie ever!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This short from Georges Méliès is an interesting mix of surrealism and science fiction. It begins with a professor (The Inventor Crazybrains, played by Méliès) in his workshop where he dances in excitement over his new plans of an airship. He goes to sleep and dreams these two clownish creatures enter his workshop, wreck his plans and make a huge mess. He then sees the airship he's planning to invent take flight, with beautiful girls appearing in it and flying away. This element makes no sense and is kind of just thrown in. A fireball hits it and makes it explode, and the inventor awakes in his laboratory only to lose his marbles.The color tinting (which appears to be stencil-color) looks excellent for a movie of the time, especially the explosions. As for the plot, it doesn't really go anywhere but that's okay since the visuals more or less keep your interest. I'm not sure why the inventor goes crazy either and the whole thing makes little sense. Then again, most dreams are that way. At only three minutes it's fun while it lasts and at least has a little bit of a plot, unlike other Méliès films around the same time.

An old professor has an idea for an airship. He has all the diagrams and documents with plans to achieve his project. However, when he falls asleep, imps come in and mess things up. In his dream when he tries to realize his plan, everything falls apart; as a matter of fact, it explodes. One big problem is all the unrelated junk that occurs just to show it off.

This is a rare case where I prefer the film's English language title more than its original French one. "Le Dirigeable Fantastique" was renamed "The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship"--now THAT's a great title! Like so many of the films by Georges Méliès, he stars in this one and it's a film that is pure goofy fantasy. It begins with some odd women entering the professor's lab and holding him down with a blanket as two weird creatures cavort about. Later, you see that perhaps this is just part of his dream...or not. The dream consists of showing a dirigible seemingly flying across the sky as the Professor sleeps. Oddly, hot ladies of the period keep emanating from the balloon! Then, this sadly ends when the dirigible explodes--and he's once again back in his room! This is a mega-weird short. I am not sure if the plot (for what it is) works too well, but it is nice eye candy.

Le dirigeable fantastique (1906) ** 1/2 (out of 4) aka The Inventor Crazybrains and His Wonderful Airship More style than actual substance is what this Georges Melies film actually is. In the film Melies plays the title character who goes to bed and dreams that his airship actually takes flight. There's really not too much that happens in the three-minute running time, although I will admit that we get a pretty fun ending that includes some great fire effects, which are used perfectly with the red tinting used to show them off. Many of Melies films would have various objects taking off flying and we'd go on an adventure with them but that doesn't happen here. The airship takes off and that's pretty much it as it really never goes anywhere and we don't get to see any real action until the end of the picture. One thing that I did like were the actual effects that are taking place behind where Crazybones is sleeping. The way that they play out gives the film a 3-D like effect and I thought they were quite good.