A smoker falls asleep, and two mischievious fairies play with his pipe. He discovers this, and imprisons them in a cigar box. He removes a flower from the box, which contains a fairy smoking a cigarette. Next, he leaves briefly while his smoking paraphenalia clears itself from the table and the flower reassembles itself into a cigar. He lights the cigar, then breaks a bottle containing the fairy, who interacts with him in various ways reeling from his cigar smoke, building a bonfire that he extinguishes, etc.
Similar titles
Reviews
"Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy" is a 5-minute black-and-white short film from considerably over 100 years ago, so it's obviously still a silent movie. There are only really 2 interesting aspects about this one. First of all, the inclusion of "or" in the title. I guess the maker behind this wasn't sure what title to choose, so he went with both, something we still see today in films. The second would be the inclusion of smoking in here. It was a common content in early films in terms of documentaries during which we see people smoke, but as the real core of the film it's something that stands out. Unfortunately the story does not, so I cannot really see why this short film is still semi-popular today. Maybe the reason is that director J. Stuart Blackton as well as actors Paul Panzer and Gladys Hulette had long successful careers in the industry and the film's cinematographer even won an Oscar later on. Their collaboration here made it into the National Film registry. I am not a fan though. Not recommended.
Over 100 years old now, but this film still contains some tricks that, while obviously not looking as realistic as today's computer-generated trickery, are at least as good as the stuff the likes of Ray Harryhausen was producing as late as the 1980s.The film is quite unique in the way it combines long shots of the mischievous fairy capering on a table with close-ups of her standing amongst over-sized props, and it's a technique that enhances the realism of the special effects for the viewer. Today, it's easy to forget you're watching screen trickery when you see the same kind of special effects that are on display here, and too easy to be distracted by the flaws of vintage effects, but that's not the case with this one. It's likely that Vitagraph set out to make a blockbuster special effects movie with this one, and they quite obviously succeeded. Well worth seeking out.
This is over a hundred years old. Its before folks had any idea of what film could really do. The imagine required is orders of magnitude what it would take today.We loose sight, but nicotine was considered a hallucinogenic for creative science in the 16th century, something worth fighting and dying for. Some did in the quest, which transferred to Indian Thuja before it was all over.This little film has a clueless man who discovers a small fairy in his tobacco. She's a vision and the source of a vision. She's impish and sexy. She's coy and controlling. She's small.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
The special visual effects and camera tricks in this short comedy are easily among the best and most resourceful of its era. Both the variety and the quality are impressive, and most of them are also amusing to watch, in addition to their technical skill. There's no telling how much trouble they had to go to in order to make them look this good, but it was worth it.The story is very slight, serving only to set up the camera tricks. It features a pipe smoker who comes face to face with a couple of high-spirited miniature female fairies and their antics. The tiny fairy characters are completely realistic, with the double exposures being done with care. There are also other special effects using stop-action and other such techniques.It's very short, only a few minutes long, but none of it is wasted. It's funny, and it's quite a display of technical skill given the limited resources of its era.