A romantic couple are transformed into skeletons via X-Rays. The film combines two very recent innovations: Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of X-rays in 1895, and Georges Méliès' accidental realisation of the special-effects potential of the jump-cut in 1896.

An elderly gentleman in a silk hat sits on a stool in front of a store on the main street of town. He has a telescope that he focuses on the ankle of a young woman who is a short distance away. Her husband catches the gent looking. What will the two men now do?

Laura Bayley, the most prolific British actress of the period and the wife of director G.A. Smith, shows her flare for clowning in this uproarious black comedy. Mary Jane learns that lighting your hearth with a tank full of paraffin may not be the safest of household chores, in a stern tale that could have come from the pages of 'Struwwelpeter'.
As in much of Smith's work, the film delights in its trick effects, including an explosion and the apparition of a ghost. (Alex Davidson)