LE CHAT BOTTE (1903)
aka Puss in Boots
Article 4842 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-5-2015
Directed by Lucien Nonguet and Ferdinand Zecca
Featuring Brettau and Edmund Boutiloon
Country: France
What it is: Fairy tale

A young man is disappointed that the only thing he inherits from his father is a cat, but once he puts boots on the cat, the cat proceeds to make his fortune.

I managed to find a copy of this one on YouTube in which an orchestra plays music to the action. On the downside, the actual movie is small enough that some of the action is hard to make out. On the plus side, the addition of a live orchestra adds a lot of flavor to the proceedings; the inevitable moments when the story stands still for dance sequences work much better when proper music is added to them. The plot was difficult to follow, but that may be simply because this particular fairy tale has a tendency to not stick with me; I’ve seen a few different versions, but I always forget the storyline. Fortunately, an elaborate plot summary of the action on IMDB helps me out. It was definitely interesting watching the film in a way that it might have been shown in its original era; that’s probably the thing that stands out most here.