Wonderful Absinthe

Alice Guy's one-minute Gaumont comedy is not a temperance lecture. In 1899 absinthe was still the café drink of Paris, served as a dose in a glass with sugar and a carafe of water. Guy's distracted customer reads his newspaper, pours the water into his hat instead of the glass, and knocks back the spirit neat. He spatters, attacks the waiter, and gets a faceful of seltzer. Fifty-five seconds of Belle Époque slapstick from the woman who was making narrative films at Gaumont before Griffith had a camera. The gag depends on knowing how absinthe was drunk. Once you do, it is simply funny.