While this Gaumont comedy, "Le Billet de banque" (literally translated as "The Banknote") has in the past been attributed to Alice Guy, as on the French DVD compilation of Gaumont films, the consensus now seems to be that someone else directed it--perhaps Louis Feuillade. Tellingly, it was the only film formerly attributed to Guy to be dropped for the Kino region 1 DVD release of the Gaumont collection. Regardless, the nine-scene comedy follows a tramp (who's humorous looking, I suppose, but hardly Chaplin-esque). He rescues a wealthy couple from robbers, and they reward him with the banknote. The tramp, then, faces some discrimination, which is treated in a light manner, as he tries to spend the money. Ironically, he resorts to stealing another man's clothes--one assumes so that he may spend his money without trouble. There's a final gag, and that's about it. I didn't find it funny, but it's, at least, not annoying, and the film has a decent pacing for its age and despite consisting entirely of static long shots; plus, it's short despite being relatively intricate for a narrative from 1907 (yeah, some have been messing up the year of the film, too, which is also a bit fuzzy). In this case, the actors' gesticulations and comedic coding helped move the film along, compensating somewhat for the far-away perspectives, for a pleasant enough experience.
