Automated Hat-Maker and Sausage-Grinder

1900 Comedy 1 minute Directed by Alice Guy-Blaché

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About Automated Hat-Maker and Sausage-Grinder

Two men demonstrate a machine in the open air. They drop live cats into the hopper with salt, water, and other scraps, then turn a crank. Sausages come out by the meter on one side. Hats pour out on the other.

Cast & crew

More about Automated Hat-Maker and Sausage-Grinder

Gaumont issued the one-minute gag in 1900. French filmographies credit Alice Guy. Henri Vallouy, who appears in the film, has also been named. It was shot outdoors. The joke repeats Louis Lumière's La Charcuterie mécanique (1895), which fed a pig into a machine and got prepared meats out.

Themes

  • a machine that eats cats
  • sausages and hats from one crank
  • a gag borrowed from Lumière
  • sausage machine
  • hats
  • cats
  • Gaumont
  • trick film

Making

The whole film is the machine. One crank, two products, and the cats go in alive.

Preservation

A print survives.

Notes

  • Lumière's 1895 version was advertised in the United States as the mechanical sausage factory at Marseille.
  • G. A. Smith's Making Sausages, also called The End of All Things, had already put dogs, cats, and a boot into a hopper.
  • This Gaumont version adds the hats.

Scenes

  • Live cats, salt, and water go into the hopper, and sausages and hats come out.

Influenced by

  • Louis Lumière's La Charcuterie mécanique (1895)

Also available

  • Internet Archive (silent-chapellerie-et-charcuterie-mcanique-aka-automated-hat-maker-and-sausage-grinder)

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