The Conjuring of a Woman at the House of Robert Houdin

The Vanishing Lady is based on a magic act by the French magician Buatier de Kolta. Méliès had already imitated the act onstage in his own venue, the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris. When the illusion was produced onstage, stage machinery was used to make the magician's assistant disappear. The newspaper and shawl were crucial for the trick to work; the newspaper, actually a custom-made rubber prop, concealed a trapdoor on the stage floor, while the shawl covered the assistant during her "vanishing" into the trapdoor and out of sight. (The chair onstage was constructed with a breakaway seat, allowing the assistant to slide downwards behind the shawl, through a hidden flap in the rubber newspaper.)