The Magic Glass

An inventor develops a magnifying glass that can see though solid objects, but when he uses it on his family it proves more curse than boon...

An X-ray magnifying glass? What could possibly go wrong? This story - one of numerous early films to make comic hay with mad inventions - relies on a common cinematic trick. A vignette shows the view through the magnifying glass in a 'door' or 'wall', so the inventor spies his son stealing food from the cupboard or the maid helping herself to the brandy. Inevitably the tables soon turn...

This comedy from the studio of Cecil Hepworth was one of many directed in the early 1910s by Hay Plumb with the same cast and crew.