Welcome to THE LOST LAUGH, a website and blog dedicated to the classic clowns of (roughly) the 1910s -1950s.
My name is Matthew Ross, and I’ve had a passion for silent and early sound comedy since I first saw Laurel and Hardy on TV when I was four years old. From there my interest spread to the other greats like Chaplin, Keaton and the Marx Brothers, and kept on growing. As well as the classics, I’m fascinated by the fringes of the industry. Neglected and forgotten performers, who brushed greatness but whose names have not endured. Many of these now seem dated; some of them do not transcend cultural barriers. Some were of dubious value in the first place! But amongst them were some perfect fools, magical acrobats, superb pantomimists, skilled filmmakers and witty wordsmiths who still can provide so much entertainment. Charley Chase, Lupino Lane, Lloyd Hamilton, Harry Langdon, Will Hay, George Formby, Mabel Normand, Dan Leno, Clark and McCullough, Alice Howell, Jack Hulbert, Roscoe Arbuckle, Anita Garvin, Charley Bowers, Max Linder, Wanda Wiley, Poodles Hanneford, Gale Henry, Walter Forde…. the list goes on. THE LOST LAUGH is my tribute to those performers.
On this site, you’ll find a selection of articles, research, rare photos and film clips from these great and forgotten stars of silent comedy, sound shorts, music hall, radio, and so on. There are three basic elements to the site.
This blog, which I update semi-regularly with articles, film clips, photos and the like.
A more in-depth reference guide to classic comedy performers, people like those listed above. These are permanent web pages accessed through the menus at the top of the page. I’m slowly adding to these and hope to have a comprehensive guide to the comedians of this era one day.
THE LOST LAUGH MAGAZINE (formerly MOVIE NIGHT) is a free ezine started in 2011 that goes into even greater detail and contains exclusive material not reproduced on the site. It’s a labour of love, produced roughly once or twice a year (depending on what other projects I have going on) and features exclusive articles and photos, as well as contributions from guest writers. You can access back issues here – if you’d like to subscribe and have new issues sent direct to your email inbox, you can find more info on how to do that inside the magazines.
Thanks for reading. I hope you find some new favourite films and performers while you’re here!
Here’s another film I never thought I’d see: one of only two starring talkies featuring Raymond Griffith.
Griffith was a real original among the silent comedians. He was suave and debonair, a bit like Max Linder, but added a jazz-age slyness and visual wit that were entirely his own. His starring features in the mid-late 1920s were big hits, but few are available for viewing today. Still, surviving entries like HANDS UP!, YOU’D BE SURPRISED and PATHS TO PARADISE are enough to confirm he was a major talent.
The coming of sound was enough to give even the funniest silent clown the jitters, but Griffith had more reason to worry than most. It wasn’t a case of simply not having a voice to fit his character, but rather his barely having a voice at all. An illness in his younger days had left him with little more than a hoarse whisper. Despite this, he gamely gave it a try in a pair of two-reelers made for Al Christie in 1929: POST MORTEMS and THE SLEEPING PORCH.
Each time, an excuse was found in the plot to justify his hoarseness; in THE SLEEPING PORCH, he’s supposed to be suffering from a bad cold. Despite the massive handicap he was facing, Griffith actually acquits himself rather well here. He’s still funny visually, with chance to make some great reactions (including an especially great double take incorporating a whole-body spin) and actually handles the dialogue very well considering, delivering some funny lines effectively. Certainly, for a 1929 talkie, this could be a lot worse. See for yourself, courtesy of Geno’s House of Rare Films on YouTube:
Clearly, there was a limit to how long the scriptwriters could keep coming up with variations on working Griffith’s hoarseness into the plot, and unsurprisingly, he didn’t sustain a career in talkies. His last role was as a dying soldier in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. Happily for Griffith, he went on to a successful career behind the scenes at Fox.
As for THE SLEEPING PORCH, it’s an interesting little curio with some amusing moments. Thanks for sharing, Geno!
Another treat from the excellent Joseph Blough YouTube channel: an extremely rare fragment of an otherwise lost Charley Bowers film. Bowers made some of my favourite silent comedies: truly surreal shorts featuring a pioneering mixture of action and stop-motion animation.
HOP OFF is from his second series of films, made for Educational Pictures in 1928. In common with many of Bowers’ shorts, it gives him some cute animated sidekicks: in this case, a pair of fleas he is training. Studio publicity tried claiming them as “the two smallest actors in the world”! The extant footage here is three minutes from near the end of the film; not much, but I didn’t realise that anything from this film existed at all, so anything is a bonus (it’s not included on the otherwise comprehensive Charley Bowers Blu-Ray set from a couple of years back). Anyway, a real treat to see, even if it is only brief. Now I’m itching to see the rest, though. (Sorry, I’ll get my coat…)
More on the enigmatic Mr Bowers in an article I wrote a few years back here: Charley Bowers
I’m midway through writing notes for the films in the new Monty Banks Kickstarter BluRay. If you’ve signed up for this one, you’re in for an absolute treat – the films are great and look fantastic! Anyway, while looking up a few bits and pieces about our Monty, I stumbled on an intriguing YouTube video. It’s an archival Czech/Yugoslavian TV documentary dedicated to Monty, from a series called ABECEDERA HUMORU, which roughly translates as ‘The Alphabet of Humour’. It seems like each episode presents a spotlight on a particular vintage comedian, with highlights from their films presented, narrated GOLDEN SILENTS style.
The interest here is that the clips chosen are big chunks of some really rare Monty films! This episode features excerpts from some of his short films, none of which I’d seen before. Some of the Banks shorts are downright obscure, so these are my best guesses for identification (this book was a big help on a couple of the films!). I’d love to be corrected, so all you silent comedy scholars lurking out there, do please chime in…
The first clip is certainly from PEACEFUL ALLEY, which has been called Monty’s version of Chaplin’s EASY STREET. (There’s perhaps more overlap with Larry Semon’s own version, THE RENT COLLECTOR, though). Some good scenes here as Monty tries to collect debts from the tough tenants, led by his very own Eric Campbell-style heavy, William Blaisdell.
Following this is a sequence where Monty, en route to his wedding, accidentally (and unknowingly) comes into possession of some bootleg booze. I haven’t got a clue which film this is from, but it’s loads of fun!
Monty unknowingly lures a crowd of drunkards through the streets. Is that Syd Crossley on the right?
Next up, there’s another scene that echoes Chaplin, namely his ballet in SUNNYSIDE, as Monty frolics, Pan-like with some girls. This turns out to be a dream, and he’s rudely awakened in his prison cell, where an escape is in progress. He makes it out, and the rest is a series of fun chase gags, including a great one where Monty, in his prison garb, disguises himself against a striped tent. This film is SQUIRREL FOOD, from 1922. Incidentally, the lanky prison guard among his pursuants has been identified as Teddy Jefferson, younger brother of Stan Laurel.
A sequence featuring Monty trying to sneak in to a harem to rescue his girl from the clutches of a sheikh (Bill Blaisdell once more). It’s reminiscent of Lupino Lane’s MAID IN MOROCCO (though that film came after this one) I wonder if this might be EAST IS WORST? (1922)
The last section is a wonderful little sequence of Monty trying to duck out of his apartment without paying his rent, then trying to evade a cop (you giessed it, Bill Blaisdell again). The more I see of Monty’s films, the more impressed I am at his ability to milk a gag to produce really well-structured comedy sequences, and this is a great example. I wonder if this might be from RENT DAY? (1922).
Here’s the video – enjoy some vintage, very rare Monty Banks!
Now, where did they get these clips and whatever happened to the original films? Perhaps they’re from the Czech archive, which definitely has some interesting silent comedies. I wonder if any more episodes from the series are out there. This opening credit sequence features shots of Larry Semon and Lupino Lane, among others. Who knows what rare gems might have been showcased in their episodes…?
From the archives, here’s an article that first appeared in issue #13 of The Lost Laugh, in 2021…
DOUBLE TROUBLE: THE SNUB POLLARD & MARVIN LOBACK FILMS
One of my earliest memories of silent comedy is of watching a ‘COMEDY CAPERS’ VHS when I was very young. One of the episodes on the tape, ‘BABY BACHELOR’ confused me: it was a virtual copy of Laurel and Hardy, but the Laurel character was wearing an enormous moustache. Who were these L & H wannabes? Years later, I learned that they were Snub Pollard and Marvin Loback, jumping on the bandwagon of fat-and-skinny comedy teams as Stan and Babe were at their zenith. I’ve always been intrigued by these copycat shorts, and endeavoured to find out more about them. Here’s the story…
It’s late 1927. Laurel & Hardy’s pairing has blossomed, and they’ve just produced their biggest hit to date, THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY, for Hal Roach. For another ex-Roach employee, Snub Pollard, things are not going so well. Once one of the studio’s big stars in classics like IT’S A GIFT and SOLD AT AUCTION, he had been let go as the studio moved to more sophisticated comedy. A series of shorts at the low-budget Weiss Brothers studios was a step down the ladder; even further down was a return to vaudeville when that series ended.
While Snub was treading the boards, Laurel and Hardy’s meteoric rise gave someone at Weiss Brothers a brainwave: why not produce their own version of the team, with Snub as the thin half? Pollard was called back to Weiss Brothers in early 1928, and teamed with large comic Marvin Loback. Loback was a veteran of Sennett and Roach, and had even appeared with Snub a few times in small parts.
The films that resulted might charitably be called homages to Laurel & Hardy; less kindly, they could be called blatant rip-offs. To be fair, some of the films were more original than others, and there was always a certain amount of shared ground and gag-borrowing in silent comedy. However, the way that some of the Pollard-Lobacks like SOCK & RUN re-enact whole chunks of L & H films is particularly shameless. What particularly attracted attention is the one-time belief that these shorts were made before the Laurel & Hardy films they resemble. We now know this to be untrue. However, there do seem to be some examples where the Pollard films did a gag or routine simultaneously or before the Roach crews.
The films are an interesting sidelight in Snub’s career, and a fun curio for L & H fans. The Laurel & Hardy influence is obvious from the outset, but is painted broadly: the amount of nuance may be gauged from the fact that Loback’s character is called ‘Fat’. There’s none of Oliver Hardy’s quiet dignity in that! To be fair, Loback does a decent job throughout the series of replicating Hardy’s impatience, if not his charm. It’s his presence that really brings the L & H comparison. As for Snub, he hasn’t changed his appearance from his standard costume of bowler, moustache, striped shirts and spats. As far as his performance goes, he’s definitely gone a bit more passive, but his trademark moustache is a handicap in reproducing Stan’s blank innocence. He rarely does a complete rip-off of Laurel mannerisms (although he does a crude version of the cry in one film), but the intention is clear.
Though the first few films of the series mainly aped L & H in the comic’s appearance, soon more similarities began to creep in. Perhaps it was lack of inspiration for new material, but the intentional effort to piggyback on the team’s success soon becomes a bit more blatant by –ahem- borrowing their material. Sometimes the likenesses are vague – Snub and Marvin as two sailors in HERE COMES A SAILOR, or a hint of DOUBLE WHOOPEE in MITT THE PRNCE, for instance. At other times, the similarities constitute plagiarism pure and simple, as entire gags and plots are ripped from L & H films like FROM SOUP TO NUTS, PUTTING PANTS ON PHILLIP and SHOULD MARRIED MEN GO HOME!
The L & H connection has brought the Pollard-Loback films into focus now and again, particularly when one theory suggested the films actually pre-dated the Laurel & Hardy films! In the pre-Internet days, and before the onset of trade paper archives like the Media History Digital Library, States-Rights films made by companies like The Weiss Brothers were obscure and hard to trace. As a result, the films seem to have been confused with Pollard’s first (solo) Artclass series, which were made in 1926-27. We now know that the Pollard – Lobacks were released in two batches, six films in 1928-29, and a further four in 1929-30, disproving the claim that Laurel & Hardy were the ones doing the borrowing.
The trade magazines only gave light coverage to low-budget, indie two-reelers like these, but after sifting through, I’ve gathered a handful of more precise dates. British trades like The Bioscope and Kinematograph Weekly also came in handy – though the films generally hit the UK a little later, the release dates gives a rough indication of when they were made and registered for release. Below is the information I’ve been able to gather to pin down the dates and titles a bit more.
1928 -29
Variety reported that Snub was working for Artclass on May 2, 1928. By June 19, they note that both Pollard and Ben Turpin have finished filming their first shorts for the company (THICK & THIN and SHE SAID NO, respectively). By September 1st, 1928, Film Daily reports that an additional two films are ready: ONCE OVER & THE BIG SHOT. American mentions of the series are scant hereafter. However, the British Press picks up the slack. Louis Weiss visited London to trade-show the series in the Autumn and they were distributed by Gaumont from November 1928. The Films Act, article 6 required that all films must be registered for exhibition – these listings tells us that the other three films from the first series were SOCK & RUN, MEN ABOUT TOWN and HERE COMES A SAILOR.
1929-30
In May 1929 Film Daily reported that Snub listed four titles in production for 1929-30; however, the titles listed were actually ones from the previous season, presumably an error. Actually, the four films were DOUBLE TROUBLE, NO KIDDING, SPRINGTIME SAPS and MITT THE PRINCE. These were released with synchronised music tracks (but no dialogue) as a concession to the advancing sound revolution. Adverts exist for the reissue of these films, with soundtracks, in 1943.
All the films were filmed in the Spring of 1929, with Variety reporting that the series wrapped in the second week of May, 1929. DOUBLE TROUBLE was used to launch the second series, and was reviewed in Film Daily on August 18th, 1929. SPRINGTIME SAPS was reviewed on October 24th. In Britain at lease, MITT THE PRINCE was the last of the series to be released, in February 1930.
With the above in mind, here’s a run-down of these seldom-discussed films, in what I believe is the order of release.
THICK & THIN
THICK & THIN was definitely the first of the shorts to be released and sets the tone for the series, with Snub and Marvin as two penniless gents in a shabby boarding house, trying to cook a meal, and then sneaking their belongings out without paying the rent.
Of all the series, this is the one that most harks back to Snub’s Hal Roach films, the hidden devices that the pair use to cook their meal a bit like a less elaborate reminder of IT’S A GIFT, STRICTLY MODERN and other films featuring Snub gadgetry.
There’s also a bit of a Harry Langdon influence, both in Pollard’s subdued persona, and in a gag lifted from Langdon’s FIDDLESTICKS. THICK & THIN is undoubtedly derivative, but the gags flow nicely and it’s an entertaining little two-reeler.
2. ONCE OVER
Snub and Marvin roll into town on a freight train, riding in a boxcar of cows. There’s a funny scene featuring the atrociously fake cow heads they use as a disguise, confounding brakeman Tiny Lipson (even more so when one of the cows appears to smoke his cigar!). For a topper, they exit the boxcar under blankets that make them appear to be a strange, two-headed beast!
The bulk of the film centres around their attempts to filch some food, pursued by cop Harry Martell. Along the way, two Hal Roach gags are – *cough* – borrowed. The scene from THE FINISHING TOUCH with Stan Laurel on both ends of the same plank is used, and there’s also a gag with a mailbag and a fence lifted shot-for-shot from Max Davidson’s DUMB DADDIES
Then it’s on to the park, where they fail to steal a family’s picnic before Snub has a brainwave. Covering his hand with a long white sock, he hides in a bush and pretends to be a swan, stealing the sandwiches a lady is feeding to the birds. Unfortunately, he knocks her in the water, and the cop is on their trail again. To elude him they enter a restaurant and are put to work as waiters. A predictable level of competence ensues, and things wrap up with some pie-throwing. Though the finish is weak, ONCE OVER is maybe the best of the Pollard-Lobacks. The borrowing is less overt than in many of the other shorts, and the film rambles along happily from one gag situation to the next, with some nice original ones thrown into the mix.
3. THE BIG SHOT (Released October 1928, belatedly reviewed in Film daily, Feb 1929)
THE BIG SHOT is another one of the better Pollard-Lobacks, having some semblance of following the same story from start to finish. Snub and Marvin are reporters tasked with getting a photo of a camera-shy Scottish inventor. This involves Snub being coerced into wearing a kilt, and we’re into a semi re-run of PUTTING PANTS ON PHILIP. It doesn’t work on the same level of the L & H film – the sexual ambiguity surrounding the innocent Laurel character in PHILIP just cannot translate to a character wearing a huge moustache! To be fair, the gags don’t try to be a carbon copy and mainly just deal in the incongruity of Snub’s appearance. There are a few nice original variations, including Snub trying to change a tyre, with the draught from every passing car sending his kilt flying up. Snub and Marvin wind up following the inventor onto a boat and eventually corner him for a photo, but Snub is too generous with the flash powder and after a huge explosion, he is left clinging to the mast.
4. MEN ABOUT TOWN
After three films that borrowed from Laurel & Hardy but at least tried to have original plots, the Pollard unit pretty much gave up the pretence of trying to be original for the next few films.
MEN ABOUT TOWN is largely a re-run of SHOULD MARRIED MEN GO HOME set on the golf course, with added gags from YOU’RE DARN TOOTIN’. However, there are some occasional moments in the Weiss Bros films where they seem to foreshadow a later Laurel & Hardy moment. Here, Marvin’s attempts to contact Snub and sneak him out of the house include trying to contact him by phone, anticipate L & H’s BLOTTO of 1930. However, L &H knew how to milk the scene for all it was worth, whereas here it is just a quick throwaway gag. MEN ABOUT TOWN is definitely one of the weaker films in the series.
5. SOCK & RUN
Ok, now they’re really taking the Mickey. Not content with pinching the kilt material from PUTTING PANTS ON PHILIP, they basically re-film the entire first reel of that film, throwing in some soup gags from YOU’RE DARN TOOTIN’ and ending with a boxing match á la BATTLE OF THE CENTURY!
The PHILIP material is recreated gag for gag, from the laughter of the crowd as Snub arrives, to his medical examination, to Marvin’s attempts to keep him walking a few paces behind. Oh, but wait, it’s actually been changed – Snub is French, not Scottish, and people are laughing at his silly top hat instead of his kilt. That ought to avoid the copyright infringement lawsuit…
Of all the Pollard-Lobacks, SOCK & RUN is maybe the one that has most secured the reputation of the series as being mindless L & H rip-offs. In this sense, it’s the worst of the bunch. On its own terms, it’s not terrible, and if you’d never seen a Laurel & Hardy picture, you’d probably find it entertaining. But if you lived in a world without Laurel & Hardy, SOCK & RUN would be the least of your problems.
6. HERE COMES A SAILOR
HERE COMES A SAILOR starts out with the boys as sailors who hire a car, in the spirit of TWO TARS, but doesn’t get down to mass car destruction (something Weiss Bros surely didn’t have the budget for). Instead, it takes a left turn to become a clone of FROM SOUP TO NUTS as the pair get jobs at a dinner party, down to Snub serving the salad “undressed”.
There is one nice original gag, as Snub accidentally causes a cameraman’s tripod camera to collapse on top of him; bumbling around on all fours with the cloth over his back and the lens dangling out in front, the man resembles some strange elephantine creature!
7. DOUBLE TROUBLE
Snub and Marvin unsuccessfully rehearse and audition their terrible vaudeville act, then are hired as process servers to repossess their landlord’s piano. This second series of Pollard-Lobacks are where some of the confusion over their originality seems to have come from. While the first-series L & H rip-offs like SOCK & RUN are blatant steals, the second batch do actually contain some gags or situations used by Pollard & Loback before Laurel & Hardy. DOUBLE TROUBLE is a case in point; Snub and Marvin’s attempts at repossession anticipate BACON GRABBERS, not just in story, but also down to individual gags.
Held back until after L & H’s first few talkies, BACON GRABBERS wasn’t released until October 1929, but DOUBLE TROUBLE was filmed before May, and had already been released and previewed by August of 1929. Therefore, it couldn’t have been a simple case of Les Goodwins or other Weiss gagmen having been to see the latest L & H film at their local theatre and filling their notebooks with ideas.
However, while DOUBLE TROUBLE may have reached cinemas before BACON GRABBERS, the Laurel & Hardy film was almost certainly finished first. My theory is that a Roach gagman moved over to Weiss Brothers, probably during the time when the Roach studios were being fitted out for sound. Another possible ‘mole’ was Bert Ennis, Snub’s gag and title writer. Ennis doubled as a publicist, and had his own regular column in Motion Picture Classic, so was probably quite well connected with other studios.
8. NO KIDDING (September 1929)
NO KIDDING is a fun little short, featuring Snub and Marvin accidentally in charge of a toddler, and then having to hide him from the landlord of their bachelor apartment. The toddler is actually played by midget Billy Barty (incidentally, he played a similar role in the Laurel-Hardy SAILORS BEWARE). There are some amusing scenes as they disguise the toddler as an adult in a suit, complete with cigar, but the deception is undermined as he proceeds to make various noises and arouse the landlord’s suspicion.
Again, there’s a parallel situation of the Snub film seeming to pre-empt the Laurel & Hardy film. The central situation of the team hiding an unwanted guest in their apartment was also the basis of ANGORA LOVE, and one particular gag appears in both films. As the landlord lectures Snub & Marvin/Stan & Ollie that “this is a respectable boarding house”, a woman walks behind him towards her room, pursued by a sailor! NO KIDDING was filmed in early Summer 1929, and released in the Autumn, but ANGORA LOVE wasn’t released until December 1929. The Roach Mole seems to have been at work again…
(By the way, this is the short I saw on COMEDY CAPERS VHS, cut down and retitled…)
9. SPRINGTIME SAPS (October 1929)
SPRINGTIME SAPS is a ragbag effort that changes situations as the team run out of gags for each one. The best scenes are set in the park, with Snub and Marvin attempting to get 40 winks on a bench before being woken by a cop, and then trying to steal a man’s cigar.
When that’s milked for all the comedy they can manage, the pair get jobs as taxi drivers, mainly so that they can nab a gag from the Sennett film TAXI DOLLS. Then things peter out in some feeble haunted house comedy.
The most notable aspect of this film is a moment where a man angrily gives Snub the middle finger! It’s not a slip or even made to seem like one – it’s just blatantly there, in full shot! It shows how low under the radar these states-rights films must have flown, particularly at the tail end of the silent era.
10. MITT THE PRINCE (Release dates variously quoted as Dec 1929 and Feb 1930).
Snub and Fat are two incompetent handy men. Sent to deliver some parcels to the social-climbing Mrs Woodby-Noble (Ho Ho!), they write off the car on the way there with bit of L & H patent tit-for-tat. When the Prince who is supposed to attend fails to show, the hostess persuades Snub to take his place. There’s a vague hint of DOUBLE WHOOPEE in this premise, but no direct stealing of material.
The best thing about MITT THE PRINCE is a nice running gag of Snub accidentally getting his hand continually in others’ pockets; other than that, it’s a middling effort.
The series wrapped in May of 1929, and with it Snub’s career in silents. However. there was still one last gasp for his starring career, and his association with Weiss Brothers. In July 1929, Film Daily reported that the company was planning some talkie shorts, with Snub heading east to film some. Two shorts resulted, and the Pollard-Loback faux L & H vibe was dropped:
HERE WE ARE (filmed July 1929, released August 1929 )
Snub played a plumber’s assistant, who ends up pretending to be the plumber’s wife. Obviously, he didn’t wear his moustache in this one, or the deception wouldn’t have been very convincing!
PIPE DOWN (Trade shown September 1929)
Snub was teamed with Jack Kearney as a pair of sailors on shore leave who keep running afoul of tough guy Gunboat Smith, ending in a slapstick fight. After Kearney knocks smith unconscious, the pair light cigarettes, but an open gas lamp next to them causes a huge explosion. At least Snub’s starring career ended with a literal bang! Variety wasn’t impressed, calling PIPE DOWN “third-rate Vaude stuff passed off as film comedy”.
These two talkies were released in the UK in February, 1930.
And with that, the Snub Pollard Weiss Brothers series was over. The films were hardly his most glorious moment, but they helped keep his starring career afloat a little longer. Viewed today, the films range from good fun, to middling, to outrageous rip-offs (sometimes within the space of the same film!), but they show an interesting sidelight to how silent comedians could try to meet changing tastes and demand for particular styles of comedy. They are also a reminder of how special, and how hard to replicate, the chemistry between Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy was.
You can enjoy some of Snub’s Weiss Brothers films (and a host of others from the studio, including Ben Turpin and Jimmy Aubrey) in the great DVD WEISS-O-RAMA
Great news for silent comedy fans in the U.K.: Kennington Bioscope’s Silent Laughter Weekend is returning to London’s Cinema Museum on November 4th – 5th. Once again there’s a fantastic programme of rare and classic shorts and features, with live accompaniments and guest introductions.
We’ve got films that haven’t been seen anywhere for almost a century, and premieres of recent restorations, including two classic Charley Chase comedies you won’t have seen before! There’s also an exclusive bit of ‘new’ Laurel & Hardy footage alongside some of their classic shorts, and the premiere of Dave Glass’ brand new restoration of Monty Banks’ PLAY SAFE! There are rarities that only survive via small gauge prints, plus wonderful and rarely screened features starring Edward Everett Horton, Mabel Normand and Max Linder.
Present via video introductions and presentations will be some of the most knowledgeable silent comedy experts in the world: Steve Massa and Richard M Roberts. We’ve also got plenty of surprises waiting…
Amidst all this fun and excitement, there is a bittersweet note as this will be the first Silent Laughter without its founding father, David Wyatt, who passed away last October. As well as one of the most knowledgeable film historians, DW was always generous with sharing rarities from his connection and passionately believed in making opportunities for silent comedies to be seen the way they were intended. He was a big supporter of The Lost Laugh, and a great friend. It was his enthusiasm that drove the Silent Laughter weekends, and the continuation of this happy, joy-filled event is one of his great legacies. We’ll be doing our best to honour that legacy, including a special tribute programme including his favourite clips and some of his own work.
Come and join us! Tickets on sale now – £30 for the whole weekend. With 12 shows in the programme, that’s just £2.50 per screening, an absolute steal! (there are also day and evening tickets available too)
Monty Banks is one of the most underrated silent comedians, in my opinion. A likeable performer and great gagman, he made a string of shorts and, yes, features, that hold up very well but are rarely seen. One of those features, PLAY SAFE, is a bit of a classic in the silent thrill comedy genre, featuring an epic stunt-filled train chase that was excerpted by Robert Youngson in DAYS OF THRILLS AND LAUGHTER.
Now, Dave Glass has just launched his newest Kickstarter project, putting the spotlight on Monty. Included is the FULL version of PLAY SAFE, for the first time anywhere! There are also lots of other goodies, too – this is going to be an essential release. Take a look at the video below and head to the link to get your copy. But don’t delay, it’s only a 30-day window to pledge your support!
The mid-late 1940s are an interesting time in Buster Keaton’s career. The comedy short market was pretty much dead in the water, but he hadn’t yet made his television debut. In the middle ground between these two fields, he made several supporting roles in feature films. Some, like FOREVER & A DAY or SAN DIEGO, I LOVE YOU, were quite prestigious, but there were several more obscure ones that are seldom seen today. GOD’S COUNTRY is one of the most obscure of all.
Released in April 1946, this feature was a low-profile B-Western/outdoor adventure film starring Robert Lowery and Helen Gilbert. It was directed by Robert Emmett Tansey, a veteran of the genre. The main plot concerns Lowery hiding out in the backwoods of the NorthWest when he is wrongly accused of murder. Adding a little light to this heavy plot, Keaton plays “Old Tarp”, a coonskin wearing bumbler. Though many silent comedians – among them Snub Pollard, Andy Clyde and Keaton’s old buddy Al St John – had often essayed the comic Western sidekick role, this is a rare diversion into the genre for Buster.
Sadly, he doesn’t get much to do, but does get one comedy routine to himself, attempting to making a Chilli while being interrupted by a raven, squirrel and raccoon. It’s hardly a classic Keaton routine, and he’s further stymied by Tansey’s direction, but it does have some amusing moments. It’s always nice to see Buster doing his thing, and here there’s the extra bonus of seeing him do it in Cinecolor. Enjoy!
I’ve just come back from the long-awaited return of Kennington Bioscope’s Silent Laughter Weekend. The world has changed a lot since the last one in 2019, and we’ve certainly all earned some good laughs! Finally, we could enjoy another full weekend of rare and classic silent comedy, and what an occasion it was. There was really something special in the air at The Cinema Museum this weekend. The films, the live music and the audience seemed even more wonderful and I think we all laughed more readily and joyously after the time away. It felt so great to be back.
Walter Forde
Saturday’s programme began with Walter Forde’s WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT. I’ve wanted to see this feature on a big screen for years; having only seen it, unaccompanied, on a Steinbeck in the BFI’s basement. Forde plays an inventor working on a wireless controlled tank – but spies from a hostile nation are out to steal his plans and sabotage the tank before the war Ministry gets it. This isn’t quite a classic, but a great little film with a uniquely British flavour – the highlight is a wonderful chase sequence on the London Underground (actually a specially built replica constructed at Nettlefold Studios). The opening scenes in a Toy shop feature some great gags too, including Forde’s attempts to gift wrap some helium-filled balloons. Although he began as a Chaplin imitator, and his later work is often compared to Harold Lloyd, Forde definitely has a style of his own, and the gags in this film are almost all uniquely his. He mixed thrills with his comedy too, and the climactic scenes of his tank (a genuine one borrowed from the War Office) running amok are genuinely exciting. Geoff Browne, author of the only book on Forde, gave some entertaining insights into the making of the film. There’s more on Forde here, and in issues 12 & 13 of The Lost Laugh magazine!
Next up, silent comedy expert Steve Massa, beamed in virtually from the U.S. to celebrate Roscoe Arbuckle. Steve’s presentation, accompanied by a wonderful montage of clips compiled by Dave Glass, really showed Roscoe in a new light. Like his terrific book on Arbuckle, it allowed us to focus on his comic skills and achievements, rather than that scandal. Roscoe’s ability to flit between slapstick chaos on a grand scale to subtle farce and even serious acting in films like THE ROUND UP deserves more praise, and the compilation of all these skills together in Steve’s presentation really showed what a multi-faceted talent he was. The show concluded with a complete screening of HIS WIFE’S MISTAKE (1916), a lesser-known but terrific little short, with some great slapstick routines for Roscoe.
Into the afternoon, and we had a programme of ALMOST LOST LAUGHS – films that nearly didn’t survive, but were rescued and/or rediscovered in the nick of time. These included Charley Bowers in MANY A SLIP, the surviving reel of the Charley Chase-Stan Laurel- Oliver Hardy curio NOW I’LL TELL ONE, and Edward Everett Horton’s DAD’S CHOICE. All great fun, and a good sampler of the stylistic breadth of silent comedy: surrealist stop motion, to situational slapstick to farce comedy in three easy moves.
I’d never seen Mary Pickford’s last silent, MY BEST GIRL, before. This was a real treat! The storyline of a shopgirl in a big store has some similarities to Clara Bow’s IT, but for my money this was a much funnier film. Pickford handled situational humour and slapstick with equal flair, a highlight being her attempts to walk through a busy store while carrying an enormous pile of pots and pans. The film depicts the burgeoning real life romance between Pickford and co-star Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers. There’s an absolutely charming sequence as Mary hitches a ride on the back of a truck, “accidentally” dropping astring of objects so that Rogers will keep following her and returning them.
There’s also one hell of a comedy cast in this film, adding to the fun; stand up and take a bow Lucien Littlefield, Sunshine Hart, Mack Swain, William Courtwright, Sidney Bracey and Carmelita Geraghty.
Cinematographer Charles Rosher made MY BEST GIRL positively glow, and was nominated for an Oscar, only to lose out to… himself. He received his award not for this film, but for his work on the classic SUNRISE, nominated in the same category. Thanks to Chris Bird for sharing his rare print of this sparkling rom-com.
I’m a huge Harry Langdon fan, so it was a real pleasure to be able to introduce a showing of THE STRONG MAN, his funniest feature film. I know Harry can be an acquired taste, but I was delighted to see the film go down really well with the audience. A huge boost to the film was Meg Morley’s piano score. With his slow performance style and quirky rhythms, Langdon is quite hard to match music to – I’ve certainly heard soundtracks that don’t really suit his style before – but Meg played an absolutely wonderful accompaniment to THE STRONG MAN that was just spot on. It was one of the best live accompaniments to a silent film I’ve seen, in fact. While we’re on the subject of music, all weekend long I found myself appreciating the live music for these films even more than usual – the absence of live cinema events in the last couple of years has really driven home how much the talented silent film pianists bring to the films. Lest we forget, this is how silent films were designed to be seen.
Day 1 finished with another classic, Harold Lloyd’s SAFETY LAST. Chris Bird gave a terrific introduction explaining how Lloyd shot the climbing sequences, and Dave Glass had an extra treat: a compilation of clips from a Spanish print he’s just acquired featuring alternate camera angles, and in some instances, completely different takes! SAFETY LAST is a film made for an audience, and boy, did it deliver the goods tonight. About half the audience had never seen the film before, and were completely wowed by it, giving it one of the best receptions ever! A jubilant finish to a great day.
Day 2 began with another Chris Bird rarity – his recently rediscovered, sole surviving print of Johnny Hines’ THE WRIGHT IDEA. This was certainly the rarest film of the entire weekend, and the screening was probably the first time it had been seen in at least ninety years. I wrote about the film in issue 13 of The Lost Laugh, but briefly, it’s a typically breezy effort from Johnny Hines featuing his attempts to market his invention of a luminous, blotterless ink. A patently contrived plot sees him mixed up with an escaped lunatic, some stolen bonds, a yacht and some bootleggers; it’s all fairly ridiculous, but a heap of fun, with plenty of good sight gags. Fred Kelsey provides a good share of the comedy as the inept Detective Flatt, and the most unconvincing prop octopus I’ve ever seen is also responsible for a good few laughs, too (If that sentence doesn’t make you want to see it, what will??). Some great accompaniment from John Sweeney kept the film bouncing along pleasantly.
Lots of fun was provided by Dave Glass’s new Billy Bevan restorations from the upcoming Blu-Ray set. ON PATROL, NIP & TUCK, CALLING HUBBY’S BLUFF and WANDERING WAISTLINES really showed that Bevan was much less two-dimensional than the received version of film history tells us. As well as an excellent performer of slapstick and sight gags, he could also add plenty of subtlety, as in the famous scene where he plays cards with Harry Gribbon (and Cameo the Wonder Dog!) in NIP & TUCK, or the gentle domestic comedy of CALLING HUBBY’S BLUFF. After seeing him in these different roles, I could fully understand how he was able to transition to work as a character actor in sound films. We were also treated to an interview snippet with Bevan’s grandson, and a behind-the-scenes featurette of how Dave has completed the restorations. If you were in on the Billy Bevan Kickstarter, you’re in for a treat!
Reginald Denny followed, in the wonderful WHAT HAPPENED TO JONES? I had to duck out of this one though, as I had to go meet our special guest for the afternoon: Sara Lupino Lane, granddaughter of Lupino Lane! Sara had very kindly agreed to come along the Cinema Museum and take part in a Q & A session to accompany some of her Grandfather’s films.
(Photo from Kennington Bioscope)
Sara has wonderful memories – of her Grandfather’s many and varied hobbies, of their trips to see panto together, and of her own father, Lauri Lupino Lane. Lauri followed in his dad’s footsteps and became a performer, specialising in a slapstick ‘slosh routine’, which he even performed in Chaplin’s A KING IN NEW YORK. Sara shared a terrific story of the time Lauri and Chaplin were together at a theatre; Lauri was besieged by autograph hunters, who all failed to recognise Chaplin and totally ignored him!
Sara was also kind enough to share one of her treasures – a can of film that she’d forgotten about for years, but had turned out to contain Lupino Lane’s own home movies! We’d kept this discovery under wraps until this weekend, but what a find they are! As well as lots of domestic scenes and clowning around, there is some priceless behind-the-scenes footage taken on the Educational Pictures lot. We get brilliant fly-on-the wall glimpses of Lane shooting MONTY OF THE MOUNTED and HALF PINT HERO; there are candid shots, outtakes and footage of Lane conferring with director Charles Lamont. There are glimpses of other comedians too: Lane’s cousins Stanley and Barry Lupino, and best of all, a previously unseen snippet of Charley Chase! Just wonderful to see, and there were some audible gasps in the room at some of the footage. As well as these rarities, we showed two of Lane’s finest slapstick ballets: SUMMER SAPS and JOY LAND, both recently restored for 2020’s Kickstarter project.
The wonderful Marie Prevost.
It was such a pleasure to be involved in hosting this screening. I’m always passionate about making sure that forgotten comedians are celebrated and introduced to new audiences, but being able to show Sara how much people still enjoy her Grandfather’s films felt extra special.
A change of pace for the next show – there’s no slapstick or acrobatics in view in Lubitsch’s THE MARRIAGE CIRCLE! This low-key film is much more subtle, but wonderfully sophisticated with fantastic direction from Lubitsch and brilliant performances. Adolphe Menjou and Marie Prevost, in particular, are just sublime. Costas Fotopoulos provided a lovely accompaniment to the film, and Michelle Facey gave a fact-packed introduction.
How time flies when you’re watching funny old films: it was time for the last show of the weekend already. Another treat to finish with: the always wonderful Neil Brand presenting his Laurel & Hardy show. Aside from the always wonderful clips of the boys, Neil’s intro was beautiful, describing how Laurel & Hardy had helped him through the COVID lockdown and how they were more relevant than ever. It was heartfelt and really quite emotional, and seemed to sum up the whole weekend.
Yes, there was definitely something special in the air at The Cinema Museum – the laughter seemed to flow more freely, somehow. Part of this was down to the wonderful curation of the programme by David Wyatt and the Kennington Bioscope team, but there was something else indefinable too. The enforced hiatus seemed to make everyone appreciate everything more. How wonderful to have chance to enjoy the breadth of comic talent on-screen, but also the amazing talent of the accompanying musicians; the chance to experience the extra dimension a live audience brings to these films; the chance to meet up again with fellow comedy fans we haven’t seen in years, and share favourite moments from the films. The wonderful news that the Cinema Museum has just been given a reprieve from closing down was the icing on the custard pie.
Despite everything, these century-old films are still funny, and have the power to bring people together to share in some collective joy. That’s a special kind of magic.
Now, can we do it all again next weekend??
P. S. Here are the programme notes, for anyone who couldn’t make it:
Here’s a fun little rarity, one of the few talkie shorts made by light comedian Johnny Hines. It’s an Educational Short from 1930; although Educational’s sound shorts have a reputation for being cheap, at this point they still had a bit more prestige, with decent budgets and good supporting casts. DON’T LEAVE HOME is a tightly plotted farce showing what happens when Johnny and his wife (Jean Reno) are forced to spend time apart and plan a surprise visit for each other. Hines is pretty good as a talking comedian, and the short gives him a nice mixture of dialogue, sight gags and reaction comedy to get his teeth into. It also has a juicy comic role for James Finlayson as a cynical cab driver, and a talking bit for Snub Pollard (he’s the plumber, without his usual moustache!)
There’s a blackface gag that it would have been better off without, but the rest of it is really pretty good, and it’s nice to see some silent veterans doing their thing in a strange new idiom. This is just one of the many delights on Joseph Blough’s YouTube channel, which has recently been spoiling us with many rare 1930s shorts, including Joe Cook, Ernest Truex and Lloyd Hamilton. Thanks Mr Blough for sharing these rarely seen gems!
The Lost Laugh 