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.
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!
After returning to Britain in 1930, Lupino Lane managed the starring career in feature films that eluded him in Hollywood. One of his final Hollywood films, FIRE PROOF, had shown that he could successfully make a slapstick film in his old style with sound. In Britain, he achieved this again with 1931’s NO LADY, a great little film that features some of his best pantomime routines, revisited. But by the mid-1930s, this sort of comedy was going out of fashion, and light musical comedies were in. As a comedy all-rounder, this was a medium that Lane also enjoyed, and he had alternated much of his film career with appearances in stage plays.
In the mid 30s, British film exhibitors were beholden to exhibiting a quota of home-grown films, in an attempt by the industry to limit the dominance of Hollywood. This set up a boom of production, with many small companies deciding to have a go: quantity did not mean quality of course, and many of these films gained the derogatory term “quota quickies”. Still, with a guaranteed market for their product, it was a good time for filmmakers to launch a new venture, and Lane decided to get in on the game. He set up his own production company, ‘St George’s Pictures’, in 1935, with the intention of making independent comedy features. Most of these are lost, but THE DEPUTY DRUMMER survives, and shows him moving more in the light comedy direction. In it, he plays struggling composer Adolphus Miggs, who joins a band as drummer to attend a party at a stately home, but is mistaken for Lord Miggs. Subsequently, he’s mixed up witha jewel theft, but manages to both catch the thieves, and find a patron for his rhapsody. It’s easy to imagine this concotion as a stage play, and it’s similar to the vehicles that Lane’s cousin Stanley Lupino was making: a light, farcical comedy with some dialogue routines, songs, romance, and the odd bit of visual comedy.
The low budget, “quota quickie” status of THE DEPUTY DRUMMER shows through; it has a slightly slapdash feel to it, with a few half-burning dialogue routines. There’s much less visual comedy than usual for Lane, and a sequence of him let loose on a rare collection of china vases (I bet you can’t guess what’s going to happen…) is pretty predictable. Nevertheless, a running gag of a missing necklace seeming to follow him around comes off much better, and as with every Lane film, there’s at least one spectacular pratfall. Here, he misses the top step of a flight, and somersaults right down to the bottom. It’s over in a few seconds, but is a reminder of the absolute physical mastery of this unique comedian.
Elsewhere, the musical comedy format permits some charming musical numbers, especially a wonderfully understated dance number with Brutus the dog, ‘Dear Old Pal’. Oh, and look out for the always reliable Wallace Lupino and Syd Crossley as two villains, plus George Formby’s regular foil Hal Gordon.
So, overall, a mixed bag, but an interesting one. If you see the film for what it is, a 30s British musical comedy with low ambitions but some great assets, then it’s a pleasant way to spend an hour or so. Lane would make one more film with St George’s Pictures, TRUST THE NAVY – now lost – before the venture fizzled, but still had one more great film in him: 1939’s THE LAMBETH WALK. But that’s another story. Here’s THE DEPUTY DRUMMER…
For over twenty years, Roscoe Arbuckle made enormous contributions to screen comedy, in front of and behind the camera. This is a man who not only mentored Buster Keaton, but also gave valuable help to both Charlie and Syd Chaplin in their early careers, as well as many other comedians like Charley Chase and Al St John. Later, he was instrumental in directing films for St John, Lloyd Hamilton, Lupino Lane and many others. As a performer, he inspired a wave of ‘jolly fat man’ performers: Babe Hardy, Hughie Mack, Walter Hiers, ‘The Ton of Fun’.
Yet for all that, Arbuckle often seems slightly taken for granted. His image is so sewn up with Keystone slapstick that his broader achievements in gentle situation comedy, farce and feature length comedies and as a director, are overlooked.
It’s hard to believe that it’s now twenty years since the definitive DVD set, ‘ The Forgotten Films of Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle’. This was the first set to really illuminate Roscoe’s wider achievements, and set a high bar. In the years since then, crowdfunding projects, access to Archives and digital technology have advanced, and the time is ripe to showcase some of the previously unseen and newly restored Arbuckle gems out there.
Among the highlights culled from Archives and private collections around the world are Arbuckle’s first Keystone THE GANGSTERS, THE SEA NYMPHS with Mabel Normand, rarely seen feature CRAZY TO MARRY, the Al St John shorts DYNAMITE DOGGIE and NEVER AGAIN and loads more! Overall, it’s a terrific sampler of silent comedy gold from one of tits finest talents. The Kickstarter campaign runs til Feb 14th and provides your opportunity to help bring these films to new audiences.
Crazy to Marry
Behind the Kickstarter campaign are silent comedy expert and author of ‘Rediscovering Roscoe’, Steve Massa, and producer Crystal Kui, with the new project being distributed through Ben Model’s Undercrank Productions.
Steve and Crystal very kindly offered to talk us through the new project, and some of the highlights it features. Read on for more…
This new Kickstarter release features a wealth of restored and reconstructed films, sourced from a range of archives and private collections. What are some of the logistical challenges in pulling all these disparate sources together?
Crystal Kui: In this Arbuckle release will be 11 shorts plus a feature sourced from seven different archives and two private collectors. Logistically, it will be quite a challenge to keep track of the shipping, scanning and restoration on all these films. We’re very fortunate that all of the participating archives were keen to provide access to their prints and are supportive of our efforts to share these treasures with the public. Thanks to Steve’s enthusiasm and deep knowledge of the films, we have been able to work with the archives on our side. After we draw up contracts with the participating archives, the next step is to coordinate the shipping or scanning of the film prints. A few archives have facilities on site to scan and restore the films, while for others we are able to ship the prints either to the Library of Congress for scanning on the east coast or to USC on the west coast. We have a team of digital restorers and color graders who are archive conscious and work diligently to bring the end result as close as possible to the original viewing experience. Not all films are complete, but we work with the best surviving or only surviving copies. My favorite aspect of working on this project is doing the research to reconstruct the missing parts or titles, finding out whether there was tinting and how it was used, and comparing foreign versions or reissues to the original domestic releases.
Were there any particular technical challenges involved in working with such rare and precious film elements?
CK: Several films in our release are sourced from foreign release prints including Crazy to Marry (1921) with Russian titles, The Sea Nymphs (1914) with Danish titles, and Fatty and the Broadway Stars with Norwegian titles. Instead of simply translating the titles into English, we tried to source scripts and censorship records in an attempt to reconstruct the titles as they were written originally in English. This requires a lot of close scrutiny and comparison. In studying the scripts, we also learned that Crazy to Marry had three tinting colors: yellow, blue and amber, which are detailed by reel, and will be recreated digitally by our graders Chris Crouse and Graham Brown, using original tinting samples from the early 1920s. Our regular collaborator, Jesse Pierce, an expert at recreating the intertitles, will design titles that faithfully match the original style of a Paramount feature, Keystone Comedy or Triangle release, for example.
Is therea particular restoration effort on this set that you’re most proud of?
CK: Perhaps ask me this in a year; the real in-depth restoration work is only beginning now that the Kickstarter has met its initial goals. We have a lot of work ahead of us!
Steve, this set comes on the heels of your book, ‘Rediscovering Roscoe’. Championing Arbuckle is clearly a passion project for you. What is it about him and his comedy style that speaks to you?
Steve Massa: I grew up hooked on silent comedy, and although I got a steady diet of Chaplin, Keaton, and Laurel & Hardy there was almost no Arbuckle to be seen. This was probably due to left over stigma from the scandal. My first real look at Roscoe was thanks to film historian William K. Everson. In a 1983 all-Arbuckle evening at New York’s Collective for Living Cinema, Professor Everson showed The Waiter’s Ball (1916), his feature Leap Year (made in 1921), and the comeback sound short Buzzin’ Around (1933). Seeing the comedian from his first full flowering to his last hurrah was an eye opening experience and inspired me to try and get as much of his work seen as possible. Since then I’ve taken every opportunity I could to present his films – at places like The Museum of Modern Art and Library of Congress, on DVD, and in print.
The fact that Arbuckle made feature films is often overlooked. ‘Crazy to Marry’ shows him mixing polite comedy plots with slapstick. Where do you think his comedy style might have headed in the 20s, if fate had not intervened?
SM: Mabel Normand and Roscoe were the first stars of slapstick shorts to move into feature films. Their type of comedy shorts, while loved by audiences, didn’t get much respect in the film industry itself, where they were often treated like poor step-children. To be taken seriously they had to appear in more serious fare and be “legitimized” as feature stars. Roscoe’s first feature was the dramatic western The Round Up (1920). The films that immediately followed, such as The Life of the Party (1920) and Brewster’s Millions (1921), were polite drawing room comedies based on popular stories, novels or plays, and were very plot heavy.
Unfortunately we don’t have access to all of his features, but by the time of Crazy to Marry and Leap Year he moved to farce comedy – which was better suited to his talents and gave him more situations to react to and opportunity to work in more helpings of slapstick. At the time of his banishment from the screen Paramount had very similar properties lined up for his next projects, so it seems likely that he would have stayed in that style.
It’s great to see Arbuckle’s directorial career represented as well. What led you to choose the particular films featured here? ( ‘Dynamite Doggie’, ‘Home cured’, ‘Never Again’, ‘Stupid But Brave’, ‘Honeymoon Trio’)
SM: The particular directorial films chosen for the set were picked for their excellence as well as their rarity and unavailability. In all of them Roscoe uses a very restrained and low-key approach that has the slapstick growing logically out of the situations. He gets very natural performances from the actors, with wonderful close-ups and reaction shots. His early sound short Honeymoon Trio (1931) will be a surprise to many people. It’s Roscoe’s “road film” – a black comic version of Detour (1946) and The Hitch-Hiker (1953), as Al St John and Dorothy Grainger head off on their honeymoon motor trip with Al’s former rival Walter Catlett in tow. Powerless to thwart or even shut up the obnoxious Catlett, Al is symbolically cuckolded as he’s caught in a never-ending honeymoon from hell.
Do you each have a favourite film or gag from the set?
SM: One of my favorite films on the set is The Gangsters (1913). This was Roscoe’s very first film for Mack Sennett, it’s amazing to see how he hit the ground running. Besides being very funny he pulls the focus whenever he’s on screen, and his “Fatty” character is already developed at this early date. When this was made Roscoe was already a well-seasoned performer, having spent a decade touring with various stock companies around the U.S. and Asia. His film experience before this had been very limited – brief sojourns for Selig and Nestor, but he instinctively seemed to understand the intimacy of the movie camera. Understanding it, he used that intimacy extremely well and quickly became an audience favorite around the world.
CK: These films are so rare, I won’t have a chance to see the films until the scans have come in from the archives. We received our first film last week, The Sea Nymphs (1914) from the Danish Film Institute, and it was so much fun to watch, with extended scenes shot on Catalina Island.
What do you hope viewers will take away from this set? Is there a particular facet of Arbuckle’s talents you’d like them to have a new appreciation for?
SM: I’d like viewers to get a full picture of what an excellent overall comedy creator Roscoe was. He’s best remembered for his on screen persona, but his work behind the camera gets taken for granted. He was a very sophisticated writer and director – even as early as 1915 his sure hand can be seen in films like That Little Band of Gold, Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916), and He Did and He Didn’t (1916). That’s why after the scandal he was able to transition so easily to just writing and directing. He was already a pro, and turned out excellent shorts with comics such as Al St John, Lloyd Hamilton, Lupino Lane and Johnny Arthur.
So there you have it: a fantastic set rammed full of rarities featuring one of the true comic pioneers. I’m sure you won’t want to miss out on this chance to rediscover Roscoe! Here’s the link to the Kickstarter, and the full planned contents:
The Gangsters(1913) – 10 min, Museum of Modern Art Roscoe had been making sporadic appearances for Selig and Nestor since 1909. The Gangsters is his very first film for Keystone, where he shares the picture with Fred Mace and becomes an overnight Mack Sennett star.
A Noise From the Deep (1913) – 10 min, Museum of Modern Art The earliest surviving film of Roscoe with his frequent co-star Mabel Normand. It is also considered to have the first use of a thrown Keystone pie.
An Incompetent Hero (1914) – 12 min, Library of Congress Roscoe is a victim of circumstances in this rarely seen comedy, which also highlights Edgar Kennedy, Minta Durfee, Al St John, and Roscoe’s tight rope walking skills.
The Sea Nymphs (1914) – 25 min, Restored by the Danish Film Institute Mabel, Roscoe and a seal have fun in the surf at Catalina, in a new scan made from the only known surviving print.
Crazy to Marry (1921) – 40 min, Restored by Cinematek (Brussels) This was the sixth of Roscoe’s starring features, and was only in theatres for about a week before being yanked out of distribution and vanishing. This rare survivor illustrates how Roscoe was taking polite comedy plots and working in more and more of his signature physical gags and slapstick.
Bonus: New reconstruction of Fatty and the Broadway Stars (1916) – 7 mins, Nationalbiblioteket (Oslo) & Private collection / Restored by theUSC HMH Foundation Moving Image Archive Only a few 35mm and 9.5mm chunks are all that’s known to exist today of this short. The Triangle Film Corp. had hired famous stage stars like Weber & Fields and William Collier to give prestige to their films, and used Roscoe to introduce some of these stage personalities to movie audiences.
Disc Two
Never Again (1924) – 12 min, Lobster/Blackhawk Roscoe here reworks the plots of Fatty at San Diego (1913) and A Reckless Romeo (1917) for his nephew Al St John. Scanned from the only surviving print.
Stupid but Brave (1924) – 21 min, Private collection / Restored by the USC HMH Foundation Moving Image Archive Having been banned from the screen, Roscoe focused on writing and directing, creating excellent comedies with Ned Sparks, Poodles Hanneford and Al St John.
Dynamite Doggie (1925) – 24 min, Lobster/Blackhawk Al St John co-stars with Pete the Pup in this rarity that reworks material from Love (1919) and Sherlock Jr. (1924), as well as early films that featured Roscoe’s dog Luke.
Home Cured (1926) – 10 min, Library of Congress Roscoe launched the series of Tuxedo Comedies for Educational Pictures which starred the fairly new screen comic Johnny Arthur. Scanned from the only known 35mm material, Johnny is a hypochondriac whose wife has had enough.
Honeymoon Trio (1931) – 12 min, Library of Congress This early sound short is Roscoe’s “road film,” a black comic version of Detour (1946) or The Hitchhiker (1953) that details Al St John on a never-ending honeymoon from hell.
Bonus: Video essay on Roscoe Arbuckle’s life and career.
Huge thanks to Steve and Crystal for giving their time to answer my questions, and for their efforts in making this project happen. I’m really excited for this set!
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 guessed 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
The Lost Laugh 