Ava-Grace Willis
Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.
Allison Davies
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Cineanalyst
This is a rather ordinary trick film from early cinema. As with most of its ilk, it mostly relies on the stop-substitution trick for its effects. There are also objects flying via wires and a stop-motion animation scene. Walter R. Booth, the wizard behind this film, had been doing these tricks for years by 1907. Before working for Charles Urban's company, he was employed by R.W. Paul. Booth and Paul collaborated on such early trick films as "Upside Down, or the Human Flies" (1899), "The Magic Sword" (1901) and "The '?' Motorist" (1906).In "Willie's Magic Wand", a boy steals his magician father's magic wand and goes about causing mischief throughout the house. It's essentially a comical reworking of the Sorcerer's Apprentice fairytale. My favorite scene is of the cook being knocked about by a flying fake fish. The primitiveness of the effect adds to the humor.I, too, viewed the National Film and Television Archive's incomplete print available on the web. As the British Film Institute's website mentions, the film, indeed, originally ended with the magician punishing the mischievous boy. As Michael Brooke of the BFI puts it, "Willie is 'punished' for his misdemeanours by being turned into a girl, thus depriving him of more than one 'magic wand'."For another Booth-Urban trick film available on the web, see "The Airship Destroyer" (1909).
JoeytheBrit
Judging by F. Gwynplaine Macintyre's review of this film, the version I found on the internet was incomplete as it didn't include any, erm, gender reassignment. The film is a fairly run-of-the-mill trick photography film that doesn't really stand comparison with the quality of work the French were coming out with at the same time, although the exuberance of the mischievous boy is quite amusing.Having watched a grown-up perform tricks that he - but probably not the audience - finds highly amusing, little Willie chooses to pinch the magician's wand and perform a few tricks of his own. Of course, Willie being a mischievous little boy, these tricks aren't going to be very benign, so it's not long before scullery maids find themselves being slapped around the face by floating fish and a sleeping granny awakens to discover she has grown a beard while she snoozed. Not great stuff, then, but worth a look if you're interested in the early years of British film-making.
F Gwynplaine MacIntyre
'Willie's Magic Wand' is an early 'trick' film of the sort made famous by French film pioneer Georges Melies. This film isn't by Melies; in fact, it isn't even French, and 'Willie's Magic Wand' suffers in comparison to the French trick films of this period. The films by Melies and his French contemporaries tended to feature tableaux of elaborately-painted backdrops which don't look realistic but -- by virtue of their ornate detail-work -- impress us and draw us into the storybook-like atmosphere of these brief fantasies.In 'Willie's Magic Wand', instead of a tableau, we have a crude stage set representing a sorceror's laboratory. The sorceror wears a robe and has a long beard, and there are some cabalistic sigils.The sorceror performs a few crude transformations (achieved by jump-cuts) with his magic wand. These are observed with great interest by a boy about eight years old. As there are no intertitles, it's not clear whether the boy is the sorceror's son or his apprentice; perhaps both. Presumably this boy is the titular Willie. When the sorceror is briefly distracted, Willie snatches the wizard's wand and takes a few whizzes himself, but of course none of his attempts come off properly. The wizard snatches his wand back from Willie, makes a magical pass at the boy, and ... hey presto! Willie turns into a girl, with long hair and a long frock. Now remade (as Wilhelmina?), she takes a quick look at herself and reacts in surprise as the film ends.I wonder if the people who made this British film had any Freudian intentions. (Probably not, as Freud's writings weren't yet available in English in 1907.) Were they aware of the symbolism in turning a boy into a girl by confiscating his wand? Also, I'm not so certain that I accept the final premise of the movie: namely, that a girl will be better behaved than a boy. One might also speculate about the wizard's intentions towards this girl, who looks a lot prettier than little Willie.'Willie's Magic Wand' is VERY crude, and the special effects are laughable by modern standards, but this movie's trickery was probably very amusing for audiences in 1907, and I'll rate it 8 out of 10.
