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| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 6 2012, 09:47 AM (2,469 Views) | |
| Laughing Gravy | Oct 6 2012, 09:47 AM Post #1 |
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I have many, many boxed sets and single and double disc sets of silent comedies, and I've dipped into all of them but haven't watch every film in most of them. So, as my Buster Keaton retrospective winds down, I've pulled out a few of them and every week I'll be watching films from them, more or less chronologically. Specifically, I've started watching "Becoming Charley Chase" (AllDay/VCI), "The Harry Langdon Collection: Lost and Found" (AllDay), "The Forgotten Films of Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle" (Laughsmith), "The Harold Lloyd Comedy Collection" (New Line), and "American Slapstick" (AllDay). I'll just give some random thoughts and point out especially good films you might want to seek out. First up was Fatty Joins the Force (1913); Arbuckle accidentally saves a young woman from drowning (she fell in a pond that doesn't appear to be more than 3 feet deep) and is rewarded by being added to the police force (she was the Commissioner's daughter). HE's then beaten up by ruffians (for a big man, Fatty sure could fall down) and picked on by a gang of bad boys. His clothes a mess and his police coat stolen by the gang of kids, he's mistaken for a wild man in the park and ends up behind bars, probably where he belongs. An okay short of the period, typical Keystone, lotsa roughhousing, you know. Peanuts and Bullets is another Keystone, this time from 1915, and stars Charley Chase. Love the title, but the film itself has that infuriating Keystone way of showing the lead comic playing directly to us, pointing out what he's doing, laughing at his own antics, etc. Annoying. Charley's behind on his rent, and so has to "fish" for his food from the fruit cart/roasted peanut vendor below. For no reason you'll ever figure out, Charley drops bullets into the fire that's roasting the peanuts, and the cart then starts "popping" and chases the cast over the edge of a cliff. See, it's the SOPHISTICATED comedy Keystone went for. Skipping several years takes us to Picking Peaches (1924) with Harry Langdon, directed by Erle C. Kenton. I'm intruiged by Langdon; the film I showed at the live gathering this summer (His Marriage Wow) got the biggest reaction from the crowd, bigger even than the Keaton film (Neighbors). I've seen some marvelous Langdon work, and some that made me wonder why anyone thinks he's funny. So he's going to be somebody that interests me very much as the weeks go by. In any case, this one's pretty plotless; Harry is a shoe clerk with a tyrannical boss (Vernon Dent; Dent & Harry were frequent co-stars, and best friends). Harry plays hooky one day and goes to the beach with a lovely customer, but Harry's wife is there, too. There's a beauty pageant going on, and we get to see what passed for skimpy in 1924. Eventually, everybody ends up back at the shoe store, and in the confusion, Harry thinks his wife is having an affair with Vernon (yeah, right) and follows Vernon home to catch them in the act. Funniest moment: Vernon catches Harry in his bedroom, says, "What would YOU do if you were in my shoes?" and Harry gingerly picks up Vernon's wrist and lightly taps it with his fingers. Not a brilliant short, but a pretty entertaining one. Next up is Are Crooks Dishonest?, a 1918 comedy starring Harold Lloyd. It's not in the big Lloyd boxed set, but I have it in the Kino Slapstick Symposium volume of Lloyd work. Lloyd and his partner, Snub Pollard, have a nice little scam going: Snub approaches a stranger and asks for help looking for a "very valuable ring" he's lost, and then wanders off. Lloyd approaches, plants a cheap ring in the grass, "finds" it, and then sells it for a few dollars to the stranger, who thinks it's valuable. Alas, they run into Bebe Daniels, who's better at scams then they are, and they lose their bankroll. So, they masquerade as a fortune teller, Prof. Goulash, and try running a new scam: same result. I liked this short the best so far, it's not a great film by any means but it's quite charming and affable. Finally, from the American Slapstick set, we've got Caught in the Rain (1914), which Charlie Chaplin claimed was the first film he'd ever directed. Very much in the early Keystone style; Charlie draws attention to every move he makes and invites us to laugh. He's in a park on a bench with a girl (you know how that goes) and follows her and her husband home. He's drunk, and slapstick ensues. They're in the same boarding house, it seems, and the wife (Mabel Normand) sleepwalks, and heads right into Charlie's room, to husband Mack Swain's dismay. The Keystone Kops are called in. The end. I didn't like this film very much, although it's always good to see the Little Tramp. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Oct 14 2012, 05:28 PM Post #2 |
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Sunday Slapstick #2 Love in Armor (1915) gives us Charley Chase and Mae Busch; believe it or not, in all the time those two spent working for Hal Roach, the one and only Roach picture featuring both of them was Sons of the Desert, where they talk on the phone but don't share a scene. Odd, huh? In any case, Charley is in love with wealthy Mae, but sneaky Baron Von Hossenfeffer arranges for her to be "kidnapped" so that he can rescue her and impress her father and win her hand. It works, but Charley sneaks into the mansion and disguises himself in a suit of armor to wreak havoc and expose the phony Baron. Meanwhile, the two would-be kidnappers return to cause trouble with a whoopie cushion made out of a flattened cactus leaf(!) Actually, quite a funny short. Odd to see Chase sans moustache for once. A Flirt's Mistake (1914) is a Fatty Arbuckle short, and a pretty weird one. He's a married man who likes to pick up women, but the "lovely" thing in the park, wearing a long gown and hidden under the parasol, is actually a visiting Rajah (Edgar Kennedy, of all people), who is so insulted at that fat guy who made a pass at him that he spends the rest of the day chasing him with a gun, a knife and a sword. Eventually, the Keystone Kops nab the murderous Rajah, but it gets worse for Fatty: his wife is tired of his flirting, and she's angrier than the sultan was. An okay short. I still don't find Fatty all that funny. Laughing Gas (1914) is a series of sight gags wrapped around the gag that Charlie Chaplin is a janitor in a dentist's office who, when the dentist is called out on an emergency, takes his place to take care of a beautiful female patient (he starts by shining her shoes) and then handles a variety of patients, mainly with a big mallet as anesthetic. Pretty funny slapstick. Ask Father (1919) is this week's Harold Lloyd offering, and it's very good. Harold is in love with a young woman whose father, a big businessman, is impossible to see when you're a suitor of his daughter. Harold tries a plethora of ways to get past the old fart's bodyguards, none of which work. Eventually, he simply scales up the side of the building and slips in the window, but to no avail. Luckily, the office's phone operator, Bebe Daniels, likes Harold, and puts a cushion down outside the door for him to land on softly. Eventually, he comes to realize that the operator's a better catch than the daughter. Look for Bud Jamison as one of the bodyguards. A good short. Smile Please (1924) is another oddly put-together Harry Langdon short. Our star is a photographer AND the local sheriff, and so we get plenty of gags about both. The sheriff part's the best; in a sedan, chasing two guys on horseback, the car jumps bushes and fences just as the horses do, via trick photography. Rescuing a woman, he earns a bride ("to keep peace in the family he shot his wife's relations") and agrees to photograph them, except her little brother is a monster who sticks a beehive down Harry's pants and a skunk into the camera, amongst other things, eventually burning the studio down. A weird short, not all that funny but impressive just for the number of different ideas stuck into 18 minutes. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Oct 20 2012, 08:24 PM Post #3 |
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Sunday Slapstick #3 Something a tad different this week. I've been reading Richard Schickel's book on Harold Lloyd, and watching some documentaries on animation in the U.S., 1900-1920, and so this week, I combined the two. First, by watching several early existing Lloyd films, courtesy of the DVD set American Slapstick Vol. 2; these pre-date the ones I'd been watching the first couple of weeks of this series. Then, I added a few very primitive early cartoons. I have to tell you, watching these assorted Keystones with the early Lloyds, I've grown to really appreciate him. When it seems every funnyman was being as crazy and silly as possible, here comes a pleasant young man in glasses and he gets more laughs than any of 'em. I would say that this past week, I've become a big Lloyd fan. Let's see if that keeps going. Colonel Heeza Liar at the Bat (Bray Studios, 1915) Colonel Heeza Liar is a take-charge adventurer and credited as the first recurring cartoon character, perhaps inspired by Teddy Roosevelt, whom he resembles. He ran from 1913-1917 with a brief revival in the 1920s. In this cartoon (9:30, pretty long), he heads to a baseball game, and when his team's pitcher is struggling, takes the mound with a crazy curveball. At bat, when a strike is called, he socks the ump over the stands. Nicely drawn characters (stick-figure backgrounds) and the fact that they moved at all is, I guess, what the audience was supposed to laugh at. Extremely limited animation (think Spunky & Tadpole) but at the time probably a sensation. The title cards are in rhyme ("The crowd begins to yell and shout / The batters lose their nerves / For Heeza Liar strikes them out / With most astounding curves"). Luke Joins the Navy (Roach, 1916) This 4:30 fragment is one of the few surviving Lonesome Luke films, the mainstay of Harold Lloyd for a long time. He's got mussy hair and the prerequisite silly moustache. Plot? He wants to impress a girl so he joins the Navy; most of the film takes place on an actual battleship with a whole deck full of sailors. Impressive, Mr. Roach. The character did nothing for me; Chaplin he wasn't. The trio of Harold Lloyd, Snub Pollard, and Bebe Daniels (she was only 16 at the time!) appears in all of Lloyd's films of the era. By the Sad Sea Waves (Roach, 1917) What a difference! Harold is The Boy, in his famous glasses and everything. At the beach, he wants to impress The Girl, but the Bluto-like lifeguard keeps him away. So he impersonates a lifeguard ("I wish somebody would drown so you could see me in action") but a cop discovers a phony and gives chase. A charming finale aboard what appears to be a small locomotive that carted pedestrians around the town, a cross between a street car and a roller coaster almost! I want to ride it! A highly enjoyable film. And I tell ya, a cop, a pretty girl, and our hero: the plot of nearly every comedy I've been watching, with only minor changes! Krazy Kat Goes A-Wooing (1916) Krazy takes his plane over to Ignatz Mouse's house to serenade him, but the mouse goes and gets a wheelbarrow full of bricks and throws one. The end. Only 2:44, but seemed longer. Hearst wanted cartoons based on his hit comic strips, apparently, but this is really a cheap, ugly cartoon with none of the charm of the brilliant comic strip. Well, okay, a mouse braining a cat with a brick has SOME charm, true. Domestic Difficulties (1916) This Mutt & Jeff cartoon (8:18) has some nice drawing and at least an attempt to be clever. Mutt's wife is stepping out and orders him to stay home, so he slides down the drainpipe to go drinking with Jeff. Coming home drunk at 3 a.m., they stop at the park, which spin around them while they remain static, the nicest animation effect I was to see this evening. Finally arriving home, Mutt is afraid his wife is waiting for him so sends Jeff in to check. She is, and she brains the li'l guy with a rolling pin (what else?). He returns to tell Mutt it's safe to go in. Clever ending. Interesting cartoon, if not hilarious. Interesting that the characters in these ancient cartoons speak in word balloons, just like in newspaper strips. I wonder what that technique was never regularly used for live-action silent screen comics? Bliss (Roach, 1917) "Nice boy, Nice girl, Nice day" the opening card tells us, so obviously where back in Harold Lloyd's world. She's a wealthy girl with many suitors; her horrible father beats them all up, because he demands his daughter marry royalty. Well, Harold is poor, but he's borrowed a tuxedo, and he's getting beaten up too until a card from the previous owner of the tux falls out; it's a Count! The father then does what he can to hasten marriage for the youngsters. Sort of a gimmicky short, but an okay one. Bobby Bumps Puts a Beanery on the Bum (1918) I thought this was a Buster Brown cartoon at first, but it’s not. It’s a knockoff, but an interesting one. Earl Hurd created Bobby for Bray, and the series ran from 1915 until well into the 1920s, but is famous for one reason: Hurd patented a method for drawing on a cel and photographing it on a still background, a process that netted him royalties from all cartoons using this process until 1932. A giant hand draws Bobby and his dog Fido (similar to what the Fleischer cartoons would be doing in a few years) and the lad and his pup head off to work as dishwashers in a diner. A lot (a LOT!) of gags follow, and the cartoon is quite amusing (a cat insults Fido; the dog says, “I’m going to make you eat those words!” and then peels off the feline’s dialog balloon and stuffs it down her throat). In the end, the giant hand rescues Bobby and Fido from the irate chef in this highly enjoyable outing. Feline Follies (Paramount, 1919) Pat Sullivan’s first Felix the Cat cartoon (4:14); Felix is called Tom here. This is easily the best cartoon I saw tonight, a real charmer. Even though the drawings and animation weren’t any better than anything else of the era (and worse than some), there was something special here. Tom goes to Pussyville and meets Miss Kitty; the two have a date atop the backyard fence, to the chagrin of the neighbors. They then head off to frolic; Tom sings to Kitty, then plucks down the musical notes and turns them into carts to ride. Only an ugly, stupid ending mars it (Miss Kitty has kittens, so Tom kills himself). I can see why Felix became the biggest cartoon star of his day. Hey There (Roach, 1918) And this was the best comedy short I saw tonight. Bebe drops a letter in the park; before Harold can return it to her, she’s reported to her job at the Near-Famous Film Company, where Snub Pollard seems to star in most of the films. Harold does what he can to sneak in as a regular guy, as a “famous screen comedian” (brilliantly, he puts his necktie under his nose to resemble a comic moustache), and then as an extra. He finally makes it in by offering $5 to whichever of two guys standing nearby can run around the block the fastest; they take off, Lloyd bonks the studio guard with a rock, and then points in the direction of the two apparently fleeing felons. When the guard gives chase, Lloyd is in, but the rest of the film is a chase between the guards and him to stay there. A wonderful, very funny short. I love the “glasses” character and his antics to woo the Girl, and enjoying the Lloyd films very, very much. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| CliffClaven | Oct 25 2012, 03:30 PM Post #4 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Saw that "Bobby Bumps" in a crowded college auditorium some decades ago. The audience was attentive and entertained through the evening, but that one gag (a pun?) shocked them into hysterics. Maybe it was the sudden Tex Avery violence of it, maybe it was breaking the rules by grabbing the text over kitty's head. Whatever it was, it killed. Even more than the raisin cake gag. Funny thing about the early Harold Lloyd glasses films. The look is there, but you'll notice the character is still evolving from a generic aggressive comic to the definitive Harold. Slowly, the energy and ingenuity is being tempered by a youthful naivete and vulnerability. |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Oct 25 2012, 09:05 PM Post #5 |
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Mouth Breather
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Thank you, Cliff, for saying what I wanted to say about Lloyd so briefly and so well. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Oct 29 2012, 02:37 PM Post #6 |
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Sunday Slapstick #4 Settled at the Seaside (Keystone, 1915, dir. Frank Griffin) Charley Chase and Mae Busch get engaged during an outing at a beach amusement park, then immediately have a spat (she hates his tie) and Mae goes off with a chunky creepy married guy to make Charley jealous. That's okay, Charley takes up with the Sennett bathing beauties. This is an odd film, very short (a half-reeler, apparently uncut) and Charley disappears completely from the climax of the darn thing to give those girls a chance to dominate the screen. I love seeing Mae during her younger, prettier days since I'm so used to seeing her as the shrewish wife in Laurel & Hardy comedies a couple of decades later. I also love it when they show current movie posters at theatres; this one's got a poster for That Springtime Feeling, a Syd Chaplin film. The Knockout (Keystone, 1914) Wow, after that 6 min. film, this one - 27 min. - seems like an epic. Fatty Arbuckle comes to the rescue of gorgeous Minta Durfee when she's accosted by a group of ruffians; he is super strong, see, and beats the crap out of the whole gang of 'em. They're so impressed they convince him to climb into the ring against Cyclone Flynn, and impress the girl while winning them all some dough. Flynn looks like a pushover, except he's a phony, the ruise of a pair of tramps looking for a quick meal before fleeing town. The REAL Flynn shows up, though, in the person of Edgar Kennedy and gets into the ring against Fatty, along with referee Charlie Chaplin. Kennedy wins, but Fatty grabs a pair of 126-shooters and starts blasting away. A very funny chase scene ensues, with the Keystone Kops in hot pursuit across the rooftops. I liked everything about this film - the supporting cast, the gags, the plot, the brick-throwing sequence, the chase, the sets, the music - except for the star. I continue to find Fatty gross and unfunny. I wonder if he'll grow on me. I wonder if he'd have changed and become more likeable if he'd been able to have a career into the mid-1920s. I wonder a lot of things. In any case, Kennedy and Chaplin are very funny and make the film worth seeing. And this film's cameo movie poster is for Caught in a Cabaret. A Submarine Pirate (Keystone, 1915) Syd Chaplin stars in a 3-reel version of what had apparently been originally released as a 4-reeler. Very impressive film, and odd as hell: Chaplin's the... uh... let's call him "Syd", shall we? Syd's a waiter/bellboy in a hotel restaurant, and overhears a couple of sneaks planning on robbing a cruise liner with a private submarine full of modern-day pirates. We all assume that Syd's going to break up the plot, but actually, he steals the plans and the submarine and attacks the liner himself! Yeah, he's the VILLAIN! He even tries to torpedo the darn thing at one point. Very odd short; I liked him best as the waiter, pulling plates, napkins, silverware and a giant loaf of bread out of his pants while serving the patrons. Very funny stuff. Luke's Movie Muddle (Roach, 1916) Harold Lloyd, once again in his Lonesome Luke days, this time much closer to the Chaplin impersonator he was reputed to be playing than he was in last week's Luke film. Luke runs a movie theatre in which he's most of the employees, but not in the Buster Keaton splitscreen way: Luke runs from being a barker on the sidewalk to selling tickets to ushering in patrons. Snub Pollard is the lazy projectionist, and Bebe Daniels is one of the moviegoers. Pretty awful stuff; in the slapstick manner of the day, Luke shows people to their seats by slapping, pushing, shoving, and kicking them. And say, what was it with kicking people in the chest? I've seen every comic short of Mae Busch do it in these films. Was that a prerequisite for getting a comedy film contract in those days? Ugh. His New Mamma (Sennett, 1924, dir. Roy del Ruth) The first five minutes of this 2-reeler are missing but told in new intertitles; the woman engaged to Harry Langdon's papa (Andy Clyde) is a golddigger, and makes a pass at Harry, too. Jealous, papa kicks him out, and he goes to California to drive a taxi, picking up the Sennett Bathing Beauties for a romp at the beach. The Beauties romp on the beach. Along comes Harry's future Mother in Law, slutting around with some other guy. Harry warns Papa. Fade out. Hmmm... I am used to these longer comedy shorts of the era being so disjointed; many 2-reelers seem to be 2 1-reelers jammed together. Still, this is not a good example of what made Langdon special. On the other hand, the girls are beautiful, sexy, dressed in bathing suits that would still be considered kinda skimpy, and it's no wonder that when they take over the screen, the lead comic vanishes offstage. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| CliffClaven | Oct 30 2012, 11:29 PM Post #7 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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"The Knockout" was my very first exposure to Keystone comedy, although I didn't realize it for some decades. When my siblings and I were small my parents -- not suspecting what they were getting themselves into -- picked up some Castle Films to run on an old 8mm projector: "The Great Chase" (the finale from "The Bank Dick"), a short version of an Andy Panda cartoon, and a few others, including one where a fat guy in underwear runs around with a train of cops dragging after him. I still have several of the films, but that particular reel got chewed up and thrown out early on. Its contents lingered as a vague memory. Jump ahead to "The Silent Clowns" by Walter Kerr: I read a description that stirred the cool embers of recollection. Jump ahead to the recent past: I finally saw the complete film on DVD and there it was. That's it. No particular point. |
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| Laughing Gravy | Nov 4 2012, 07:06 PM Post #8 |
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Sunday Slapstick #5 The ages of the stars of today's films when they were made: Roscoe Arbuckle, 27 Mae Busch, 24 Charlie Chaplin, 25 Charley Chase, 22 Bebe Daniels, 18 Babe Hardy, 25 Harry Langdon, 39 Harold Lloyd, 26 Billy West, 25 The Rent Jumpers (Keystone, 1915, dir. Frank Griffin) Sweeties Charley Chase and Mae Busch are off on a nice dinner date on Charley's roommate's wallet, which unbeknownst to Charley is empty, the roomie having paid the rent. Through a mixup, the landlord and the roomie end up with each other's pants, which means the money has gotten lost again and they both come after Charley for it. An okay short, the pants-swapping scenes are better than the Charley-Mae scenes; they're a very nice young couple, but there's nothing... special?... about them, to make them someone you'd root for in a film. Apparently in real life Mae was quite the spitfire, not too popular. During her many years with Hal Roach in the 1930s, she appeared in many Laurel & Hardy films (and one Our Gang) but nobody else, pointedly "old friend" Charley Chase, wanted to use her. The Rounders (Keystone, 1914, dir. Charles Chaplin) Here's a film I've seen a few times before. Fatty Arbuckle and Charlie Chaplin are well-to-do drunks (who live in very shabby apartments) and they come home at dawn to find irate wives. Discovering they're lodge brothers, they decide to head back to the nightclub together. I find Fatty to be particularly unfunny in this one; he's not playing an obnoxious country bumpkin for once, but his obnoxious drunk (who physically pushes his wife around) is no better. A minor film. Cupid's Rival (King-Bee, 1917, dir. Billy West) I've read a lot about Billy West, "best of the Chaplin imitators", but never experienced him before. He's... Uncanny. It's nearly impossible in most scenes to tell the two guys apart! Billy is the janitor/Mr. Everything in a boarding house, Oliver Hardy is a poor artist living there, Leo White is a wealthy artist with lots of models, including Hardy's girlfriend. Billy as Chaplin does a routine with spittoons, dresses up as cupid to flit amongst the models, and imitates the Little Tramp right down to his walk and movements. There's a funny sequence in which he's clobbered by his wife with a "God Bless Our Home" sign, and I liked a gag where a model wrapped in a long gown gets caught in the vacuum and spins around (we don't see her naked, alas). More interesting than funny. Billy Blazes, Esq. (Rolin, 1919, dir. Hal Roach) Very funny western; outlaws have taken over the town, sheriff Snub Pollard is hapless, so quick-on-the-draw Billy Blazes rides into town to clean it up and rescue Bebe Daniels. Just a series of gags with Harold Lloyd out-thinkin' and out-drawin' the bad 'uns, but very funny stuff. He knocks a horse down decades before Alex Karras did it. The intertitles are funny, too, but then they usually are in Roach films. "You're eleven years behind in your rent. I'm getting impatient," the landlord tells Bebe's father. I like a comedy that makes me laugh. Not a typical Harold Lloyd character, but funny nonetheless. The First 100 Years (Sennett, 1924, dir. Richard Jones & Harry Sweet) The first five minutes are missing, but we catch up. Harry Langdon and his new wife hire a cook, a horrible old hatchet-faced crone who smokes cigars and terrorizes them. They bring in a replacement, an adorable young thing who treats Harry with far more attention than makes his wife comfy. The couple has a pair of visitors, too: an old friend of Harry's with a mysterious secret, and a disguised lunatic who sneaks in through a window. Some very nice sight gags: a bad guy is tossed way, wa-a-a-a-a-ay off a cliff, and he then bounces right up and complains about it; the hatchet-face scares a bulldog so ferociously that the poor cur runs several blocks, hides, and then turns around and peeks back at her. Pretty funny stuff. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Nov 12 2012, 12:05 PM Post #9 |
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Sunday Slapstick #6 Love, Loot and Crash (Mutual, 1915, dir. Mack Sennett) Dora Rodgers and her father advertise for a "Fashionable Cook in a Banker's Home". They get a fat male burglar in drag. Dora's boyfriend, Charley Chase (still in his Charles Parrott days), are planning on eloping (daddy can't stand the guy); meanwhile, the neighborhood cop meets the cook, decides she's a plump cutie, and won't leave the kitchen. The crook cook is exposed and flees with Charley, who blundered into the wrong elopement vehicle; Dora and the Keystone Kops give chase. Or is it vice versa? I dunno, but this is a funny little film and it's always a delight when one of these things end up with a squad of Kops falling all over themselves. Leading Lizzie Astray (Mutual, 1914, dir. Roscoe Arbuckle) Wild comedy; a city slicker on his way through the sticks convinces virginal Minta Durfee to flee her humdrum life (and fiance Fatty) and go to the Big City with him. They go to a gin mill; she's regretful and wants to go home. A couple of roughnecks, Mack Swain and Charley Chase(!), come in and shoot up the place; Fatty arrives to rescue his love. A fun short, but I still can't stand Fatty and I hope I don't have to keep saying that every week. If he's going to grow on me or I'm going to start seeing what it is about him people like, it ain't started yet. The Bond (First National, 1918, dir. Charles Chaplin) The Little Tramp produced this one-reel promotional film to sell bonds during the Great War, and it turns out to be terrific. Charlie and Edna Purviance star in a series of vignettes showing the bond of friendship, of love, of marriage. Then we turn to the Liberty Bond, with Syd Chaplin as the Kaiser. Bottom line: you give the money to Uncle Sam, he gives it to Industry, Industry makes weapons for our soldiers and sailors. A terrific film that everybody should see. Just Neighbors (Rolin, 1919, dir. Harold Lloyd & Frank Terry) "You'll note that our film begins well," the opening title reads. Harold is rushing home to his new bride with a plant for their lovely garden; next door neighbor Snub Pollard is building a chicken coop. Harold tries to help, but the result is a neighborhood feud between the men and their wives until the Pollards' daughter wanders into traffic and everybody pitches in to save her. A funny film, slapsticky and Harold obviously isn't the character his glasses boy was to evolve into, but I enjoyed this one. I'm not sure if Beanie Walker was doing Roach's titles at this point, but they're usually quite funny (Of Mrs. Pollard: "She was down the course when the first three passed the post in the Beauty Contest"). Luck o' the Foolish (Sennett, 1924, dir. Harry Edwards) One of those 2-reelers that seems like a pair of almost-unrelated 1-reelers stuck together. Harry Langdon and wife Marceline Day are on a trip via train, and the first reel concerns all of those misadventures, including Harry handcuffed to a vicious criminal, Harry attempting to shave while sharing the mirror with a portly fellow, and Harry's money being stolen by a pickpocket. Then, returning home, Harry is a cop on the beat, scared of everything but eventually meeting up with said pickpocket. Lots of good sight gags, some involving a second-floor balcony and a swimming pool. I like Harry's character; I was mainly familiar with him from his talking pictures, and didn't find him all that appealing, but he's growing on me and his films are undeniably clever. Reading about silent films, I'm discovering that most everybody ranks Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd as the "Big Three" but there's disagreement about who is #4. So far, Langdon's in the lead with me. We shall see what we shall see. I am still hoping to see some Arbuckle short that makes me say, "OH! So THAT'S what the fuss was all about!!!" |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Nov 13 2012, 12:17 PM Post #10 |
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Mouth Breather
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I'd rather watch Stan and Ollie than Langdon. Just sayin'. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| CliffClaven | Nov 13 2012, 04:12 PM Post #11 |
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Balcony Gang, Foist Class
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Somewhere -- think it's on one of the commentaries on "Langdon Lost and Found" -- it's said that they used Mack Sennett's house for some exteriors in Luck of the Foolish. Sennett had the gimmicked balcony railing (notice it doesn't break but flops as if hinged) and conveniently placed swimming pool as a little something to liven up parties. |
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| Laughing Gravy | Nov 13 2012, 05:53 PM Post #12 |
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Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
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Sure, drunken party goers falling from a second floor balcony when the railing gives. Great idea, Mack! Laurel & Hardy are tops with me, of course. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| panzer the great & terrible | Nov 13 2012, 09:16 PM Post #13 |
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Mouth Breather
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You bet, and some of their silents are hard to beat. So far there's only one Langdon I love, but I haven't started with the shorts yet. Have to admit his films are different, though. Maybe if you had grown up on silent comedy exclusively he would seem really cool, but my brain is wired to Warner Brothers cartoons and Langdon's movies feel slow. |
| Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious... | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Nov 13 2012, 11:00 PM Post #14 |
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Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
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I love comedy of reaction. He reacts well. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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| Laughing Gravy | Nov 18 2012, 04:09 PM Post #15 |
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Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
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Sunday Slapstick #7 A Versatile Villain (Keystone, 1915, dir. Frank Griffith) Harry Bernard (Charley’s vaudeville partner) is Charley Chase’s boss, the train station manager; Charley is his assistant, who is also an amateur magician who likes to pick pockets for fun. Well, when Desperate Dan – a REAL pickpocket – comes along, Charley has to clear his name, since he’s in love with Louise Fazenda, the boss’ daughter. Billed as a parody of D.W. Griffith. I guess so; it’s a parody of something or other, and pretty good. When Louise is tied up and put into a storage shed, she’s surrounded by cartoony barrels and boxes marked in giant letters with the forms of explosives contained therein. The Keystones, though, are filled with comics turning to the camera and mugging, pointing out their own antics, and inviting the audience to laugh, which I invariably do not. I wish I could see more non-Keystone films of the period so as to compare. In my mind, it’s all the same thing, regardless of the film. Mabel & Fatty’s Wash Day (Keystone, 1915, dir. Roscoe Arbuckle) Mabel Normand and Fatty are next-door neighbors with worthless, grumpy, mean spouses. After they get the laundry done, they’re joined by said spouses for a walk in the park (and I am not certain what park this was filmed in, but man, is it beautiful). Well, due to a mix-up, Fatty’s awful wife thinks Mabel’s awful husband has stolen her purse, and the Keystone Kops are called in. An odd short in that our two married (but not to each other) stars flirt shamelessly with each other. Not very funny, but not bad, either. Don’t Shove (Rolin, 1919, dir. Alf Goulding) What a difference a few years makes in this comedy festival! Beautiful Bebe Daniels is having a birthday, and many rich suitors – including Harold Lloyd – show up with gifts, but jealous Bud Jamison substitutes smelly pipe tobacco for Harold’s flowers and our boy is thrown out. Harold meets up with the party later at a roller rink, and tries to show off his non-existent prowess to win Bebe back from Bud. Harold’s silly ineptitude on skates is the hook in this one, a minor comedy to say the least. I continue to find Lloyd himself appealing, however. Golf (Semon, 1922, dir. Tom Buckingham & Larry Semon) I seem to recall seeing a Larry Semon comedy many years ago and being unimpressed, but I like this one, a 3-reel gag fest with little plot, just dozens of cartoon-type gags piled on one after another. With his bowler hat, pasty makeup, and giant coveralls, Semon seems closer to the traditional circus clown than any of the other comics I’ve seen. He is expressionless, with a pixie-ish face, too. I wonder what the rest of you think of him? I liked him. In any case, we’re dealing with something about Larry’s sister, Lucille Carlisle, and her two suitors, Vernon Dent and Oliver Hardy (how’s THAT for a pair of beaux!). Larry practices his golf in the living room, then they all head to the course, where Semon battles a ground squirrel in a segment you’ll all be familiar with if you’ve seen Caddyshack, which you probably have. In any case, it’s the highlight of the picture. After that, there are gags with skunks, goose eggs, dirty carpets, and whatever else Semon can think of to toss in front of the camera. Not a brilliant film, but for sheer effort and gag quantity, one of the better silent comedies I’ve seen. The Hansom Cabman (Sennett, 1924, dir. Harry Edwards) Soon-to-be bridegroom Harry Langdon awakes after a bender to discover he’s married to a floozy golddigger; his fiancé and her father have him arrested for bigamy. He escapes prison, little knowing that he’s been cleared, it was all a plot by his butler to extort money from him. Harry takes it on the lam as the driver of an old-fashioned horse & buggy, but some opium-smoking Chinese fares give Harry such a buzz he creates a traffic mess. A nice film, filled with good gags (the prison cell sequence reprises part of the old vaudeville wheeze “Crazy House”; on the run, Harry spots a wanted felon, pulls a cop over to the wanted poster to point out the guy, and discovers the poster’s been changed and now HIS face is on it). Even given the primitive era in which Keystone operated, I am really preferring the Lloyd & Langdon films by a wide margin over the earlier stuff. |
| "I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley | |
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11:36 AM Jul 11