The Invisible Fluid (1908)

Name: The Invisible Fluid
Genre: Comedy, Science Fiction
Released: 1908-06-16

12m

Running Time

Plot.

Had the poor melancholy Dane, Hamlet, lived in this, the twentieth century, he would never have given voice to the remark, "Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew!" No indeed! He would have procured some of the mysterious fluid compounded by an erudite scientist by which things animate and inanimate were rendered non est, for ten minutes at least, by simply spraying them with it. In an atomizer, he sends a quantity, accompanied by a letter, to his brother. In the hope of his putting it on the market. The brother regards it as a joke, and, while toying with the atomizer, accidentally sprays himself. Presto! he is gone, to the amazement of the messenger boy who has carried the package thither. The boy reads the letter, and at once sees the amount of fun he can get out of it, so he nips it.

Where to Watch.

No streaming offers found

Cast & Crew.

Edward Dillon

Messenger

D.W. Griffith

Mailman

Anthony O'Sullivan

Fruit Vendor

Mack Sennett

Mover

Wallace McCutcheon Sr.

Director

Billy Bitzer

Director of Photography

Details.

Release Date
June 16, 1908

Status
Released

Running Time
12m

Filming Locations
Grantwood, United States of America

Genres
Comedy Science Fiction

Last updated: 2023-11-11

This Movie Is About.

silent film

short

Wiki.

The Invisible Fluid is a 1908 American silent science fiction comedy film produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company of New York, directed by Wallace McCutcheon Sr., and starring Edward Dillon. The short's plot relies extensively on the filming and editing technique of substitution splicing, also known as "stop trick", a special effect that creates the illusion of various characters or objects suddenly vanishing on screen.

Full copies of this trick film, now in the public domain, survive in various formats. Some digital copies are available for viewing on streaming services such as YouTube and at the Internet Archive. Film-stock copies are preserved among the holdings of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and in the collection of the British Film Institute in London.