An elderly, tattered drunkard stumbles down a street in front of a fireworks shop. He makes a chaotic pass at a passerby, who rebuffs him, and he collapses into a drunken stupor. A group of young troublemakers pass by, see the drunkard, and hatch a plan. Breaking through the doors of the fireworks shop, they surround the drunkard with pyrotechnic devices and let them start going off. The drunkard wakes up, bewildered by the fireworks, and begins running about before disappearing in a burst of smoke. The young troublemakers laugh at their prank.
Production
The film began production after Méliès's son André Méliès, then four years old, told him about a dream he had had, in which practical jokers put fireworks around a sleeping drunkard.[2] Méliès plays the drunkard in this film version of his son's dream, which uses pyrotechnics and substitution splices for its special effects.[2]
References
^Malthête, Jacques; Mannoni, Laurent (2008), L'oeuvre de Georges Méliès, Paris: Éditions de La Martinière, p. 349, ISBN9782732437323
^ abEssai de reconstitution du catalogue français de la Star-Film; suivi d'une analyse catalographique des films de Georges Méliès recensés en France, Bois d'Arcy: Service des archives du film du Centre national de la cinématographie, 1981, pp. 232–233, ISBN2903053073