The Laboratory of Mephistopheles, initially released in Britain and America as Laboratory of Mephistopheles and also known as The Cabinet of Mephistopheles, The Devil's Laboratory, Faust's Laboratory, and The Laboratory of Faust, was an 1897 short silent film directed by Georges Méliès, loosely inspired by the Faust legend.

Plot

Mephistopheles, the demon who appears in the Faust legend, disguises himself as an old man and waits on customers in his laboratory. As the customers prepare to leave, however, Mephistopheles mystifies them with various magical pranks and cavorts under several animal disguises, taunting them with a beautiful vanishing lady and trapping them briefly in a cage. One of the customers, noticing a sword on the wall, manages to cut Mephistopheles's head off, but it remains alive and eventually reattaches itself to its body. Finally, to the great relief of the customers, Mephistopheles himself ends up trapped in his own cage.