Le chat botté

I'm going to assume that my readers are sufficiently familiar with the Charles Perreault fairy tale to not need a synopsis of the story.

The copy of this early Pathe super-production (direction by Lucien Nonguet and Ferdinand Zecca, two of the actors identified) was poor. It was so poor that many of the figures were reduced to shapes and the extensive title cards were almost illegible. Segundo de Chomon was credited as having a hand in the production, but I could not tell what; I will guess that he was the cameraman.

The show is half panto (the actor playing Puss in Boots is wearing a cat costume, and the actors playing the rabbits he preys on are also wearing costumes) and half ballet; there are lot lots of sliding panels and such; clearly this is meant to be a representation of a stage production. Its great length for the era -- a full reel -- shows that the era of longer movies has arrived; Melies' and Porter's successes with longer story films have had an impact.