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Segundo de Chomon was the big guns when it came to doing Melies films and stealing his audience -- with a twist. With Melies, what you usually got with the magic tricks was a magician. That, however, was a limited number of pieces and if you wanted to use those tricks -- particularly stop-motion disappearance -- you had to place them in a context, changing the magic from the point of the piece to the grammar.

Although the line of grammar that de Chomon invented was a dead end -- the techniques would remain -- he executed them with more variety that Melies. Here a couple of thieves steal a street vacuum cleaner and use it to pilfer all manners of goods and people in a variety of settings, including some on the street, as opposed to Melies' controlled, set-bound pieces. It's no more than a variation, but a highly amusing one at that.

"The Vacuum Cleaner" is a hilarious film considering that it was made in 1908 and it still stands up very well today. Segundo de Chomón has crafted a funny little film that is quite clever.

The film begins with a couple guys pushing a HUGE hand-cranked vacuum cleaner down the street. They leave it for a moment and two jerks find the machine and decide to have fun--sucking all sorts of objects and even people into the machine! It's done through stop-motion--stopping the machine as the objects seem to be pulled into the giant vacuum hose and then restarting the camera after the object or person has been taken off-camera. It's a crude effect by today's standards but it's done very well here. It makes for a cute little film that ends appropriately. Quite good and worth watching.