As another reviewer points out, both this film and La Course à la saucisse bear witness to a certain increased slapstick element in Gaumont films at tis time. Alice Guy, in charge of production, wa hugely overworked. By 1906 she had completed her masterpiece La Vie de Christ but her time was very largely taken up by the production of phonoscenes, sound films mainly based on operas and popular songs, which were for Gaumont a priority at this time. His engineers had developed a highly efficient sysem of semi-automated synchronisation and of amplification and Gaumont, believing - twenty years two early - that this was the future of film, intended to launch the "talkies" in a big way in 1907 in the hope (alas illusory) of breaking into the US market. During the year over a hundred phonoscenes wree made and, alhough Guy was not responsible fothe sound recording, the playback performances, which required the actors to mime to the recordings, were tricky to make and must have been exceedingly time-consuming.
For the comic shorts, therefore, she relied increasingly heavily on her three new asssistants, Louis Feuillade, who was the accredited scriptwriter, Étiene Arnaud and Roméo Bosetti. Although Guy was undoubtedly still in overall control, the content and style of the films increasingly represents the work of these three - particularly a strong emphasis on low comedy (as in this film), on fashionable chase films (as in La Course à la saucisse) and rather dubious toilet humour. There is no sign that Guy objected to any of this. She was no prude and seems rather to have enjoyed the laddish environment in which she now found herself.. She thought well of her assistants, especially Feuillade whom she would eventually designate as her successor when she left for the US.
The moment of departure was not far off. The "rejuvenated" Guy fell in love with the younger Herbert Blaché in late 1906, the two were engaged on Christams Day and married on March 4th after which Guy immediately resigned her post in order to accompany Blaché who had been given the job of marketing the phonoscenes in the US.
The director of this film is not in fact known. The date can be inferred from the Gaumont catalogue which is chronological. It follows immediately after the Christmas films made in 1906 and was therefore probably made either in December 1906 or January 1907. Guy would not have had a great deal of time (phonoscenes, preparations for marriage and departure) and she certainly made two other films in Jan-Feb 1907 - Les Résultats du feminisme (remade much later in the US) and L'Assassin (a "grand guignol" melodrama which she refers to in her biography).
The probability is that this film, written by Feuillade, would have been directed by one of the assistants - Feuillade himself, Arnaud or Bosetti. La Course à la saucisse, to judge from its position in the catalogue, was not made until March 1907 and is again almost certainly the work of one of these three.
For the comic shorts, therefore, she relied increasingly heavily on her three new asssistants, Louis Feuillade, who was the accredited scriptwriter, Étiene Arnaud and Roméo Bosetti. Although Guy was undoubtedly still in overall control, the content and style of the films increasingly represents the work of these three - particularly a strong emphasis on low comedy (as in this film), on fashionable chase films (as in La Course à la saucisse) and rather dubious toilet humour. There is no sign that Guy objected to any of this. She was no prude and seems rather to have enjoyed the laddish environment in which she now found herself.. She thought well of her assistants, especially Feuillade whom she would eventually designate as her successor when she left for the US.
The moment of departure was not far off. The "rejuvenated" Guy fell in love with the younger Herbert Blaché in late 1906, the two were engaged on Christams Day and married on March 4th after which Guy immediately resigned her post in order to accompany Blaché who had been given the job of marketing the phonoscenes in the US.
The director of this film is not in fact known. The date can be inferred from the Gaumont catalogue which is chronological. It follows immediately after the Christmas films made in 1906 and was therefore probably made either in December 1906 or January 1907. Guy would not have had a great deal of time (phonoscenes, preparations for marriage and departure) and she certainly made two other films in Jan-Feb 1907 - Les Résultats du feminisme (remade much later in the US) and L'Assassin (a "grand guignol" melodrama which she refers to in her biography).
The probability is that this film, written by Feuillade, would have been directed by one of the assistants - Feuillade himself, Arnaud or Bosetti. La Course à la saucisse, to judge from its position in the catalogue, was not made until March 1907 and is again almost certainly the work of one of these three.
