It’s the 2025 Silent Laughter event this Sunday at The Cinema Museum! A full day of silent comedies on the big screen, with live musical accompaniment and introductions from film historians. Among the line-up are W.C.Fields, Louise Brooks, Colleen Moore, Mabel Normand, Wanda Wiley, Fred Evans (‘Pimple’), Snub Pollard, a long-lost silent P.G. Wodehouse adaptation, and Laurel & Hardy as you’ve never seen them before…
The programme notes are now available for download – eleven pages of essays and commentary by Glenn Mitchell, Michelle Facey, Bob Geoghegan and yours truly. You can read them below, or download the pdf.
It’s back! This year’s Kennington Bioscope Silent Laughter day takes place on Sunday November 23rd at London’s Cinema Museum. We’ve got a full programme featuring some brilliant silent comedies that you won’t see on the big screen anywhere else, including some being shown for the first time in almost a century! As regular attendees will know, we’re all about telling the forgotten stories of silent comedy: the overlooked performers, the forgotten gems and the long-lost. So, among the highlights this year are a rediscovered adaptation of the P.G. Wodehouse novel The Small Bachelor (1927), an unlikely pairing of W.C. Fields and Louise Brooks, and a celebration of some of the brilliant funny women often neglected in the male-centred narratives of the silent comedy genre: Wanda Wiley, Mabel Normand, Colleen Moore and Marion Byron. We’ll also be featuring some familiar favourites, too: Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy and Charley Chase all feature in the programme. All screenings feature introductions from film historians, and live music from some of the best accomnpanists in the world! Tickets are just £21 for the day – a steal! – and you can get them from this link: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/kenningtonbioscope/1922369
Read on for the full programme:
10.00 IT’S THE OLD ARMY GAME. Though posterity remembers him as a talking comedian, the great W.C. Fields – enemy of small dogs and children everywhere – made some wonderful silent comedies. This 1926 feature follows the trials and tribulations of small-town druggist Elmer Prettywillie (Fields) and boasts some terrific comic set pieces, from his encounters with difficult customers to a nightmare picnic. It later provided the blueprint for his 1934 classic It’s A Gift, and also features an unlikely co-star: silent icon Louise Brooks!
11.30 REDISCOVERIES & RESTORATIONS Almost a century after the silent era ended, some brilliant lost films keep resurfacing, while restoration efforts help others to live anew. Regular attendees will know that we always pull out some real goodies from the bag for this segment of Silent Laughter, and this year is no different. We’re still digging through the treasures on offer, and exact titles are TBC, but expect new restorations of long-lost (and hilarious) films starring Snub Pollard and Roscoe Arbuckle, as well as a long-lost British short Pimple’s Lady Godiva (1917). We’ll also be showing a sparkling new restoration of Laurel & Hardy’s classic Big Business.
14.00 FEMALE FUN Unfortunately, our view of silent comedy tends to be dominated by male performers. Although fewer studios provided opportunities for women to shine in comedy, there were still plenty of wonderful performers who managed to break through the slapstick patriarchy to achieve stardom in their own right. Here we shine a light on three of the best funny women: Wanda Wiley proves that women can do slapstick just as well as men in A Thrilling Romance, Marion Byron stars with Max Davidson in charming situation comedy The Boy Friend, and the wonderful Mabel Normand pokes fun at vanity in the rarely seen Anything Once. Introduced by Matthew Ross.
15.45 WHY BE GOOD? One of the defining ‘flappers’ of the 1920s, Colleen Moore sparkled in a series of deliciously frothy light comedies. Why Be Good? is a classic jazz-age tale set in a metropolitan world of department stores and night clubs: a real time capsule. Life-of-the-party Pert Kelly (Moore) falls for the boss of the department store where she works – but will her free-spirited ways be tolerated by high society?Lost for many years, Why Be Good? was restored in 2014, complete with its original ‘Vitaphone’ music and effects soundtrack. We’ll be showing the film with this vintage accompaniment today. Introduced by Michelle Facey.
17.30 FOCUS ON… KEYSTONE In the early teens, Keystone Studios was a crucible forfilm comedy. From Charlie Chaplin to Roscoe Arbuckle, Mabel Normand and The Keystone Cops, many of the icons of silent comedy were forged here. Dave Glass and Glenn Mitchell take a deep dive into the studio’s modius operandi and its seismic influence on comedy, with classic and rare film clips galore!
20.00 THE SMALL BACHELOR Lost for a century, we’re proud to present this re-premiere of a rediscovered adaptation of a P. G. Wodehouse novel. Set in Greenwich Village, the plot focuses on aspiring artist Finch (George Beranger) and his romantic entanglements. The New York setting gave Wodehouse plenty of chance to gently lampoon American culture, especially through the Western-obsessed character Sigsbee Waddington. A cast of great comic character actors bring Wodehouse’s characters to life, including Lucien Littlefield, Tom Dugan, Gertrude Astor and George Davis. Directed by light comedy specialist William A Seiter, The Small Bachelor fizzes with gentle wit and farcical humour: a rediscovered treasure for fans of Wodehouse and silent comedy alike. This screening will be introduced of Christopher Bird, who rediscovered the film. Continuing the spirit of the main feature, The Small Bachelor will also be supported by a short film starring Bioscope favourite – and farceur extraordinaire – Charley Chase. Limousine Love is one of Chase’s all-time funniest films, as he -innocently – acquires a naked woman in the back of his car en route to his wedding!
Snub Pollard’s bowler and moustache might not be as iconic as Chaplin’s or Oliver Hardy’s, but he’s still a sort of silent comedy totem. That worried little face with the upside-down Kaiser Wilhelm ‘tache is shorthand for a whole genre of delightfully deranged, gag-happy comedies from the early 20s. IT’S A GIFT is an acknowledged classic of surreal gadget comedies, but it’s far from the only great Snub film. He was a busy man, turning out dozens of terrific one and two-reelers for Hal Roach in the early 1920s. Gag-for-gag, these are among the funniest silent comedy shorts, but there’s never been a proper, high-quality collection of his films. Until Now.
Dave Glass’s latest Kickstarter will hopefully change that. It aims to shine a light on our boy Snub, in a packed BluRay collection of some of his best – and rarest – films. A mammoth TWENTY SIX of them, in fact! As well as private collections, many of these come from archivists such as Serge Bromberg, EYE, and The Library of Congress, and they’ll all be restored and scored by some of the finest silent film accompanists around. This is simply an unmissable Kickstarter, and will hopefully give Snub the due he deserves. To take a peek at the riches that will be featured, take a look at Dave’s great little promo video:
As always, when one tugs at a strand in the tangled silent comedy web, one finds it is attached to many others: Charley Chase directed several of these films, James Finlayson shows up in a few, and there’s even a couple of long-unseen Harold Lloyd films included, with Snub as his sidekick. So, this isn’t just for diehard Snub fans, by any means. If you enjoy gagged up silent comedy on any level, you’ll find something to enjoy here. Make sure you don’t miss out: the Kickstarter runs until September 15th. here’s the link. Go go go! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/reelcomedy/snub-pollard-silent-comedian/creator
By the way, if you want more info about Snub, there’s a detailed article about him in issue 13 of THE LOST LAUGH magazine. You can download that for free here: The Lost Laugh magazine.
Well, it’s been a while, but the new issue is done.
At 60 pages, this is the longest one yet, and I’m proud to feature some fantastic guest contributors this time. Syd Chaplin’s biographer Lisa Stein Haven has provided some great insights into our cover star, as well as his more famous little brother… There are also some details on the newly restored Syd feature, Oh! What a Nurse!.
I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to publish an exclusive excerpt from Steve Massa’s new book about Harold Lloyd’s Lonesome Luke films, and the early years of the Hal Roach studios – available soon from Split-Reel. There’s also a very informative Q & A with Steve about the new book.
There are also articles about Jerry Drew, Marion Byron, Monty Banks and a piece about gagman extraordinaire Charles Rogers, by Holly Foskett and Matthew Lydick from A Lot of Fun Writers. Plus, a transcript of an interview with Al St John, film and BluRay reviews and lots more.
I really hope you enjoy this issue. I hope it won’t take as long for #16 to come along! If you’d like to contribute an article, plug a project you’re working on, or take part in a Q & A for the next issue, please do get in touch – either in the comments section here, or by emailing movienightmag [AT] gmail.com
And finally… The magazine is totally free. However if, you do enjoy reading the issues and would like to make a donation to support site running costs, software etc then these would be gratefully received! If you would like to donate, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-Fi. Thanks!
Charley Chase at Hal Roach. The Late Silents: 1927 features fifteen great Chase shorts, most of them unseen for years.Here’s the trailer, and read on for a review. Spoiler alert: it’s insanely good, and you should buy it.
There’s a – quite possibly apochryphal – legend that Charley Chase buried a boxcar full of his old film prints and personal memorabilia somewhere in the San Jacinto desert. That rumour may never be verified, but this latest DVD/BluRay collection from The Sprocket Vault gets us close in spirit to unveiling such a Chase treasure trove. The films here have been largely unseen for decades; some were considered lost, others locked away in archives, or withheld due to copyright restrictions. When The Sprocket Vault began their series of Chase DVDs a few years ago with his talkie shorts, this already seemed like an unlikely and amazing bonus; when they moved on to his uber-rare (and hilarious) 1929 films, I thought I’d seen everything. But this set is the culmination of everything that Richard M Roberts and Kit Parker have been working towards in the series so far. It’s yet another release I never thought I’d see, and it presents some of the greatest silent short comedies ever made, rescued from the void. Quite simply, this is one of the most important silent comedy DVD/Blu Ray releases ever.
Why? Well, it represents the biggest release of “new” (ie. largely unseen) Chase films in years, and they capture him at the peak of his powers. 1927 was maybe Charley’s annus mirabilis. He made many of his best films, and was Roach’s biggest star. A reminder of his status is that both Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appear as supporting actors to him in that year’s Now I’ll Tell One, the remaining footage of which is included here. Within a year, the Laurel & Hardy team would supplant him as the big news from Culver City, and Chase would forever play second, or third, fiddle to them.
However, the work presented here is compelling evidence – perhaps the most compelling yet? – for Chase’s status in the top echelon of silent film comedians. There’s a dazzling array of comedy techniques on display – from farce (Assistant Wives, A One Mama Man) to topical humour (Us), and adroitly handled slapstick and sight gags (The Way of All Pants, Are Brunettes Safe?).
A couple of the films have been seen before, but scattered across a variety of releases, often in poor quality. They look much improved here, courtesy of the restorations by Paul Gierucki at CineMuseum, and its great to have films like Forgotten Sweeties and There Ain’t No Santa Claus available as part of a cohesive Chase collection. The most familiar film here is Fluttering Hearts, which is so good that I’m sure no-one would begrudge owning another copy. After that, almost everything is new to Chase fans. And what joys there are to experience. I don’t want to give everything away in this review, but here are a few samplers:
Are Brunettes Safe is a wonderful comedy featuring Chase standing in for his doppleganger, who turns out to be a dangerous bandit. There’s some terrific physical comedy here as he has to incorporate the villain’s distinctive limp into his impersonation. This climaxes in another one of his fantastic eccentric dances, with Polly Moran.
A One Mama Man has great performances from both Gale Henry and Vernon Dent (rarely spotted at Roach) to add to the fun. This film was remade by Chase as the talkie Skip The Maloo! In 1931, but this version is much superior.
Assistant Wives is one of his best farces – another ridiculous premise, made believable by Chase’s perfect characterization and storytelling. A terrific cast here, too: Anita Garvin, Noah Young, Eugene Pallette and Edna Marian all add to the fun as Charley has to hire a stand-in wife when the boss invites himself to dinner. Some beautiful, original gags as well; Charley trying to carry three bowls of soup backwards up a fire escape is a particular highlight.
The jewels in the crown are the long-unseen, complete versions of two films sampled in Robert Youngson’s comedy compilations. A brief section of the Lindbergh-baiting Us was seen in Four Clowns. Alongside the other Chase excerpts showcased there, I’d always been a little underwhelmed by this one, but the whole film is an absolute delight. While there are quite a few silent comedies featuring aerobatic finales, Us is a winner by virtue of relying on Chase’s character to provide the comedy. A nervous would-be flyer afraid to leave the ground, he presents himself as an aviator to impress Margaret Quimby, then has to constantly find new excuses to weasel out of actually going up in an aeroplane. This makes for some really funny sequences, and the film looks beautiful too.
The Way of All Pants was, for many years, thought to only exist in the cut-down excerpt featured in The Further Perils of Laurel & Hardy. Even in that truncated format, it was an absolute barnstormer of a comedy, but happily the full version was rediscovered a few years ago. The extra space of the full version really sets up the characters, and provides plenty of wonderful new gags (not forgetting the witty original intertitles). While losing trousers for comedy purposes can seem like a hackneyed idea, Chase’s absolutely mastery of how to provide variations on a running gag, expertly paced, make this one of the best of all his films, and among the top tier of Hal Roach comedies. We were privileged to showcase this new restoration at the 2023 Silent Laughter Weekend, and many people said it was their favourite film of the entire weekend!
The Way of All Pants is also a great example of how Chase’s silent films have such perfect rhythm, not just the way they are directed and edited, but in Chase’s own pitch-perfect timing and body control. I was really struck by this when watching all the shorts on this set.
This set ranks along with All Day Entertainment’s Harry Langdon: Lost & Found set, Lobster’s Charley Bowers collection, Dave Glass’ Monty Banks restorations and Undercrank’s Edward Everett Horton set as a major, game-changing showcase for a silent comedy talent. And, if the films themselves weren’t enough, you get great musical scores from Dr Andrew Simpson, and information-packed commentaries from Richard M Roberts, which really put the films into their historical context. Massive thanks and congratulations to everyone involved in making this release happen. It puts Chase at the forefront of the silent comedians, where he belongs. Now, what are you waiting for? Go buy it!
Well, here we are. Somehow it’s November, and it’s almost time for the Silent Laughter Weekend at London’s Cinema Museum. We think it’s a great lineup, from classics with Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy, through to obscurities and rediscoveries starring everyone from Dorothy Devore, Monty Banks and Charley Bowers to Marion Davies and Pat & Patachon. Plus the UK re-premieres of long unseen films with Charley Chase, Syd Chaplin, Charlie Murray and Clara Bow.
The trailer above gives a good flavour of what’s to come, but if you want to know more, here are the full programme notes for the weekend:
(And if that doesn’t convince you, we’ve got a whole load of “Easter Egg” extras to add in. AND some of the most talented silent film accompanists playing for each show!) Here’s the link to buy tickets, if you haven’t already:
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
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
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:
Issue 14 of THE LOST LAUGH is now available to download!
The newest issue features a focus on some of the ‘light comedies’ of the 1920s. The cover star is Marie Prevost, who is usually remembered chiefly as a terrible cautionary tale of the tragedy that can befall a forgotten star. It’s unfortunate that this has overshadowed her tremendous skill as a comic performer in both Sennett slapstick and more sophisticated farces. In issue 14, we put the spotlight back on her overlooked comedy talent.
The ‘light comedies’ of Johnny Hines, Reginald Denny and Doug MacLean also feature, and did you know that great dramatic actor George Arliss made some lightly comic feature films? . It’s a thrill to be able to publish a guest article by Mr Arliss’ biographer Robert M Fells, focussing on this forgotten aspect of his career.
Other articles include a Q & A with David Crump, author of a fantastic new biography of Fred Karno. You’ll also find articles on Harold Lloyd‘s UK visit in 1932, the surreal and postmodern Masquers Club Comedies and forgotten silent comedian Al Alt. Plus the usual news and reviews!
*Errata: In the review of the new Charley Chase DVD, I somehow got the number of films included wrong. D’oh! There are actually 21 shorts, not 15. So, now you’ve got even more reason to buy it!
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