The English engineer, William Crackford, is in his laboratory with his assistant John. Around them is a colorful array of globes, maps, and models of ships and trains. Crackford, being English, naturally dresses like Sherlock Holmes. He has a mania for high-speed travel, a mania destined to bring him to a bad end. The engineer is visited by Satan's envoy in disguise. The envoy assures Crackford that his master, the Alchemist Alcofrisbas, can provide undreamed of vehicles for speedy locomotion. Together the three arrive at the alchemists laboratory, a fantastic domed structure filled with all manner of occult chemical paraphernalia, gargoyles,, and astronomical equipment. The envoy goes to seek his master. A seven-league boot gives John a kick in the bottom. Crackford's chair rises to the roof. The telescope swings around menacingly while assorted monsters threaten from above. The white-bearded alchemist Alcofrisbas (Méliès) enters and calms the fears of his guests. The seven assistants of Alcofrisbas enter with the mortar in which the alchemist will prepare the magic pills. Alcofrisbas pronounces the secret incantation as the ingredients are stirred. In order to demonstrate the marvelous powers of his concoction, the alchemist throws a pill to the gound. Smoke and flames and a beautiful fairy appear. Crackford approaches her, but she turns into a hideous monster. In order to receive the wish-fulfilling pill, Crackford must sign the fateful contract with Satan. The engineer and his assistant leave with their treasure while Alcofrisbas and his assistants resume their reightful forms as Satan and the Seven Deadly Sins. Crackford returns to his home, where his household is dining. Imnpatient to get on with his experiment, Crackford throws a pill to the ground and a trunk appears magically. Two wigged domestics pop out of the trunk. A second trunk is produced from the first, then more domestics. The set is soon full of trunks which are lined up across the room. The servants take all the furniture in the room and stuff it into the trunks, followed by Crackford, John, and the whole family. In a twinkling the trunks turn into a train, with the engineer and his family properly installed and devils and Satan reappears. The train is now traveling through the Alps while people watch from nearby roofs. A trestle bridge collapses beneath the train. The locomotive and one coach are saved, allowing the voyage to continue in more compact form. The travelers arrive in front of an inn in a small Italian village, where they descend and are welcomed by the hotel chef. The train turns back into trunks which are carried off by the servants. After the travelers enter the hotel, the cook becomes Satan, who calls his two fiendish helpers out of a well. Inside dinner is beseiged by demonic forces: portraits on the wall gobble up the table settings, food disappears, tables and chairs appear and disappear, an étagère turns into two demons who chase Crackford and John about the room. The kitchen staff is in an uproar. A monkey disrupts all attempts to eat. Demons somersault onto the table crowning Crackford with a soup tureen and John with a calf's head. Imps hurtle in and out of stage traps in a paroxysm of acrobatic energy. The frenetic kitchen staff chase Crackford and John out the door. The decor and stage machinery are the traditional scheme used for this scene as it had been played in "The Devil's Pills" ever since 1839. Outside again, the company discovers the fantastic carriage which will carry them to their adventure. The carriage with its phantom horse is one of Méliès' loveliest creations. The horse with its skeletal members and torso like a photographer's bellows refuses to budge until the carriage is pushed by Satan in an automobile. The horse convulses into action. The final fearsome voyage begins. The carriage clims the slopes of Vesuvius past a moving panorama. The volcano erupts, tossing the infernal carriage to the heavens. Comets and star, Phoebe on her crescent, and Saturn peering from his ringed planet pass in review before the voyagers. At least two layers of moving photographs are superimposed over the rolling panorama. The carriage bucks up and down on puppet poles. The horse gallops eccentrically by means of overhead wires. It matters little that the actors in the carriage have changed, the ride having been photographed at least a half year earlier. At one point the apocalyptic horse balks, is whipped by the driver, and backfires smoke before galloping off at disastrous speed. The coach encounters a storm, and is sent spiraling toward earth. Crackford, falling unperturbed through space, opens his umbrella to slow his fall. Inside a spledid dining room, servants are setting the table. The ceiling splits open and Crackford and John Fall onto the table, scattering everything. The unflappable engineer recovers, the table is reset, and Crackford sits down to eat. The soup tureen is opened and up pops Satan waving the signed compact. Crackford is seized and forced through the floor while John finishes the soup. Mephistopheles and his victim make the dread descent into Hell, passing the flaming river Styx. Satan's final triumph is celebrated by a bat-winged chorus of female spirits and rollicking demons. Crackford is skewered and roasted for the pure Anglophobic fun of it. (texten från Artificially Arranged Scenes. The Films of Georges Méliès av John Frazer 1979)
