Automated Hat-Maker and Sausage-Grinder | 1900 | Short, Comedy

Title: Automated Hat-Maker and Sausage-Grinder | 1900 | Short, Comedy Director: Alice Guy Studio: Société L. Gaumont et compagnie Starring: Henri Vallouy Runtime: 1 Format: Silent, black-and-white Country: France Language: Silent Genres: Comedy, Short --- Chapters: 00:00:00 Demonstration begins 00:00:10 Ingredients loaded 00:00:25 Crank and conversion 00:00:40 Sausages and hats produced 00:00:55 Closing gag --- Summary: In a single-shot workshop demonstration, an inventor and his assistant feed assorted ingredients into a whimsical contraption. With a few turns of a crank, the machine improbably churns out strings of sausages while also producing an array of hats. The film plays as a concise comic sketch, poking fun at mechanized transformation and the era’s fascination with automation. Its humor comes from the deadpan presentation of an impossible process rendered as a matter-of-fact industrial routine. --- Background: Produced by Gaumont and directed by Alice Guy in 1900, the film belongs to the earliest wave of French screen comedies. It revisits a popular “mechanical butcher” stage-and-film gag first seen in the 1890s, here adding the surreal twist of hats emerging alongside sausages. Contemporary sources note it was made as a brief comic attraction typical of the period and photographed in an outdoor setup. --- Trivia: The film’s original French title is Chapellerie et Charcuterie mécaniques; it is also encountered as Chapellerie et charcuterie automatiques. Henri Vallouy is credited on some databases for the worker role seen operating the device. Running approximately one minute, it matches the standard length of many early Gaumont actualities and comic sketches. The premise echoes an earlier Lumière short about a mechanical charcuterie device, reflecting a broader turn-of-the-century fascination with assembly-line magic and transformation gags. Shot outdoors, the setup uses a simple fixed camera position consistent with production practices circa 1900. --- Public Domain / Rights: Original Studio / Distributor: Société L. Gaumont et compagnie Copyright Status: Public Domain Renewal: Unknown --- Hashtags: AutomatedHatMakerAndSausageGrinder ChapellerieEtCharcuterie AliceGuy AliceGuyBlaché Gaumont SilentFilm FrenchCinema PublicDomain 1900sCinema ShortFilm Comedy This video was sourced from Internet Archive. Originally uploaded by Alice Guy-Blaché. https://archive.org/details/automated-hat-maker-and-sausage-grinder-1900-chapellerie-et-charcuterie-mecaniqu