Guy's Contribution to the Chase

As a director and head of production at Gaumont, Alice Guy likely oversaw numerous chase films, one of the most popular genres of early cinema, of which this, "The Race for the Sausage," is one. Others that remain accessible today include "The Burglars" (1898), "A Story Well Spun" (1905), "An Obstacle Course," "The Game-Keeper's Son" (both 1906) and, to an extent, "The Drunken Mattress" (1906) and "The Rolling Bed" (1907). The significance of all of them to film history is in the development of continuity editing across shots and, thus, the invention of narrative cinema. "The Race for the Sausage" is the purest of the form I've seen of the films oft ascribed to Guy. A fluffy dog steals a chain of sausages, with a chaotic chase of people ensuing after the runaway pooch--taking the picture through 15 shots of exteriors and one of a flimsy interior. Additionally, there are two emblematic shots of man's best friend at the beginning and ending. Guy employed this technique to even better comedic effect throughout in the prior "Madame's Cravings" (1906). Nevertheless, "The Race for the Sausage" features an effective conglomeration of techniques of the day, including by abiding modern rules of character movements between frames, even if the emblematic shot, as distinct otherwise from the narrative linearity, has since been abandoned, for the most part, from the chase.

As highlighted in the documentary "Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché" (2018), this Gaumont film was quickly plagiarized by Pathé as "The Policeman's Little Run" (La Course des sergents de ville) (1907).