The Caretaker's Daughter (Chase 1925)

Everything I see of Chase in his prime convinces me he was one of the greatest of the lot. He plays opposite his brother here in a really strong, and really outlandish, old-fashioned farce. It reminds me of nothing so much as an episode of Frasier at its most farcical. There's that ski lodge episode actually- maybe I'm just seeing the connection there. There isn't really a weak link in here- this is good ensemble playing. Parrott (J) plays a limping oriental lodge caretaker- when various farcical complications arise at the lodge between various couples, detectives and cons, everyone takes their turn trying on the limping oriental disguise. Tremendously silly, yeah of course, but adorably done.
Adorabe too is Grant as Chase's wife- she has some lovely bits early on when the two of them have some business with an old dilapidated car. The plot is one of those plots where you can't quite pin it all together afterwards, but it works just fine while it's going on. As good as 'Mighty Like a Moose'? No, nowhere near. But this bunch of players is fun to watch, and they seem to be enjoying themselves, especially with the disguise stuff.

Any Old Port! (Laurel & Hardy 1932)

Laurel and Hardy can seem so delightfully artless after an orgy of Chaplin. It's all appearance of course- Stan was every bit the craftsman too, but he crafted humour rather than art. And it goes without saying that while Laurel and Hardy films may never have aspired to the status of art, art, at their best, they most certainly are.
'Any Old Port!' isn't really one of the best of them though, that said, but it'sstill huge fun and features a gloriously vile turn from Walter Long. Two sailors home on shore leave help a hotel waif escape from the clutches of her bullying boss. Job done, and short of funds, Ollie enters Stan into a boxing fight- his opponent, the bullying boss. Really, Walter Long is hypnotically unpleasant here- his immoral, sociopathic sneer is haunting. I'm not sure the film would have been half as good without him.
The boxing match is good- but they always are aren't they? You have to really go some to fail with a comic boxing match. The best bits though are before the match even starts, with Ollie in Stan's corner, guiding him, working the crowd. Stan wins his fight, knocking Long out with his own loaded glove- but Ollie put all their money on the bully to win, so they've learn nothing, they've gained nothing. But they've saved a lady's honour. Laurel and Hardy were heroes every step of the way, whether they get recognized for it, rewarded for it, or not.

Mabel's Strange Predicament (Normand / Chaplin 1914)

This was a tiny joy and I really wasn't expecting it to be. Perhaps that's the thing- it's all about expectations. The Chaplin Mutuals were going to be masterpieces, the Chaplin Keystones were going to be simple-minded, barbaric slugfests. And it was silly of me to be thinking like that, even subconsciously. A lot of the other Kesytones I've seen I've really enjoyed. And I really enjoyed this one. Smile on my face all the way through. Lousy DVD print though- French intertitles, inappropriate music, and I'm not even sure the whole thing was there. But the film itself? I loved it.
And such a great, simple farce idea- Mabel is locked out of her hotel room in her pyjamas. After an encounter with an amorous drunk (Chaplin really doesn't seem to be playing a tramp here, it's just the same costume isn't it?) she ends up under Chester Conklin's bed while his wife is out of the room. So simple, and so pregnant with possibilities for the aspiring slapstick hound.
Charlie is actually rather more than a bit player here- whether it's a question of the presentation of the surviving material or not I couldn't say, but his amount of screentime seems pretty much equal with Mabel's: he has whole scenes to himself and he makes the most of them. He is hypnotic for all manner of reasons. Mabel herself is extraordinarily cute, but I've seen her better than this- she is outshone in the scene she shares with Chaplin in the hotel corridor. I'm not buying her the way I'm buying Chaplin. Her movements belong to another age, Chaplin's belong to every age. And I like Mabel Normand, don't get me wrong.

The Immigrant (Chaplin 1917)

Edna Purviance was so much more appealing here, back in 1917, than she was in 'The Kid'. Even if I hadn't heard the stories of alcoholism there's a freshness to her here that's a treat to see- fundamentally she's still in there for drama rather than comedy, but there's a twinkle in her eye here and she makes the performance memorable.
This is a much lauded Chaplin Mutual, and it's very well done, and I didn't care for it as much as I wanted to, which is why I'm wasting words on Edna Purviance while I try and figure out why it didn't hit home for me.
One or two of the ideas seemed a little milked. A little stretched. Breaking point beckons. Maybe even three of the ideas. The lurching of the boat from side to side. The card game. Charlie's problems with the bill in the restaurant in the promised land. These were all great ideas, and maybe it's just me- really, maybe it's just me- but I was watching them thinking: enough already. Move on. Perhaps this is the great drawback of watching these things on DVD- they were crafted for large audiences, of course they were, and what can be expertly paced for a huge room of hysterical punters isn't going to work so well in a more intimate one-on-one encounter.
I watched this and 'Mabel's Strange Predicament' over the course of the same day, and 'The Immigrant' isn't the film I'd be watching on DVD again out of choice. Not given those two options it isn't. This is a far more 'brilliant' film in every way, but I found myself struggling to care about it.
The little touches though- ah, they make it worthwhile. Charlie catching a fish in the opening scene, his shuffling in the card game, some of the pantomime stuff in the restaurant (especially with his hat)- these are beautiful, beautiful moments. I'd just rather snip them out of the film and watch them in isolation if that's okay with you. That okay? We'll do that and say no more about it. And if some great auditorium somewhere decides to showcase the Chaplin Mutuals, maybe I'll give it another chance then.

Neighbors (Keaton 1920)

The washing lines again! What about that. I'm going to start seeing variations on the washing line gags everywhere I look now.
This is brilliantly made and executed, and some of Buster's stuntwork is superb, but... there's something missing. Two feuding families, the boy and girl in love... Ah, it's Shakespeare! Buster and Virginia Fox (a pretty doll-faced creature here, very demure) carry out their romance over the width of the yard between their two apartment buildings, families- especially her father, big mean old Joe Roberts (who seems absolutely colossal here, and quite terrifying)- interfering at every opportunity. I love the location actually- it feels like they're performing on a big open air stage between the houses, and there's so much scope for running gags and visual tricks with the fence slicing the yard in two. There's a hell of a lot to admire here- and the acrobatic human totem pole carrying Buster and Virginia across the yard, from one high window to the other- is one of the most brilliant Buster things I've seen, but perversely it all feels a little over-choreographed and over-planned. Sometimes hesitancy and chance are our friends.
The 'I bought a Ford' gag- what's that about? Way over my head. Is it something obvious that I'm missing, or a topcal reference the effect of which has been diluted by time?

Sons Of The Desert (Laurel & Hardy 1933)

We could be venturing into heresey territory here, but for a big chunk of its duration I don't think 'Sons of the Desert' is very good. I mean, it is good, and it is certainly one of the better Laurel and Hardy features, but anyone talking about it as one of their best films? No sir. I take exception to that kind of talk. But you can see why its reputation is as high as it is- the ending is so good that you just come away from the film on a high, and tend to forget some of the less successful stuff that has gone before. Such as: Charley Chase. The stuff with Charley Chase just isn't funny. Now I love Charley Chase. And I can accept that he's playing a whole different kind of character here, and I'm happy with that- go for it, see if it works. But it plainly doesn't. There's nothing wrong in principle with having a hugely irritating, obnoxious character in a comedy film- it just doesn't work here. There's nothing funny in what he says or what he does- it isn't Charley's fault, this just really isn't particularly funny material.
Let's move on to the business with the front doors. Stan and Ollie live next door to each other, and there's a huge, elaborate sequence of them geting confused and entering each other's houses, getting locked out, trying again etc. This would have been, should have been, a nice little gag, but it is blown up into being a showcase scene, with all the different possibilities explored. And it is tiresome. Really it is. There I've said it.
You know what, let's just stick my neck right out while I'm getting carried away and say one more thing. I don't really care for Mae Busch. She may be great in films I haven't seen her in, but in the films I have seen her in I don't really care for her. I find her irritating. I've said it, move on, move on.
There is, of course, some wonderful, wonderful stuff here. The final few minutes- the confessions to the wives certainly, but also the scenes before the confessions, with the boys hiding in the attic- are some of the sweetest, and funniest, that Laurel and Hardy every filmed. Every nuance of the relationship between the two comedians is so perfect here. Hell, even Mae Busch's contribution is worthwhile. Stan is absolutely adorable, and you cheer him on as he gets his drink and cigarette from sweet but rather scary Dorothy Christy.
Aside from this final volley of genius though, my favourite moment in the film is a strange little nothing of a moment- Stan and Ollie take a cab back home after the convention. Once they exit the cab, the poor driver is first hit in the face by Stan's door, and then trips over Stan's bag. I don't even know who the cab driver is- it's over in a flash, but is just a perfect, superbly executed moment.

Number, Please? (Lloyd 1920)

Searing and powerful indictment of 1920s telephone culture. This is great actually, a really good short, full of novel camerawork (all the merry-go-round suff- that's first-rate) and honest-to-goodness laughs. It starts actually with the biggest laugh of them all- tyrng to forget the lost love of his life, Harold seeks adventure on a rollercoaster- sitting in the last car he finds himself being hit by the flying hats of all the chaps from the cars in front. Well it plays better than it sounds, trust me.
It's another great silent fairgound film, this- they're always fascinating even when they're not funny, because you're being given such a delightful snapshot of the idle pleasures of another age. Glimpsing all the advertisements and the fashions- it's a joy watching this stuff, like a little time capsule. Smplest of plots- a girl, two rivals, and a dog. Who needs anything else? This was from the Mildred Davis era, and she's fine here, though a little under-used. Lloyd had some of the greatest leading ladies of the era, I think that goes without saying, but Mildred here is a cipher and nothing more. There's no character, no subtlety. She really is just The Girl and that's it. Even the otherwise rather anonymous Roy Brooks, the Rival, has the potential for a bit of back-story, a bit of hidden intrigue, but the Girl is... nothing. And, granted, perhaps that's intentional- there is no happy romantic conclusion here, because, after all, there was never any particular spark between them in the first place. The Boy is back on his fairground rides, a 1920s emo, Mildred and Roy and her cute little dog take a balloon-ride off into the sunset.
The central scene, the scene that gives the film its name, has the Boy trying to put a call through to the Girl's mother. It is a long scene with a simple premise, but it doesn't get tiresome, and again you're getting a little glimpse of a world that's long gone now.

An Eastern Westerner (Lloyd 1920)

A more rogueish Boy than we have become used to- rich and spoilt, he is sent West by his exasperated father to build character and prove himself a man. And out West he meets Mildred and her own ailing father, and character is built and the man is proven.
It's a strong Western this, though short on outright hilarity. The opening scene with Harold shimmying the night away at a 'shimmie dancing prohibited' nightclub is a quick glimpse of decadent civilization before the Boy heads off to horses, dust and gunfire. Here, Noah Young rules the town- big, burly and bullying, and with his own eye on Mildred Davis. Well, as if...
But the Boy not only lets down his father and shimmies when shimmying aint on, he's also not averse to cheating at cards, and while we're happy he gets his girl, it's hard to particularly care about this character. There was still some streamlining to be done I think before Lloyd completely nailed him.
The best moment is probably Harold practising his lassooing skills for the Girl's amusement- even here though the smile you'll have is a wry one rather than a carefree one. It's a neat film, well done, but it's not the one that's going to make you a Harold Lloyd fan.

Hoi Polloi (Three Stooges 1935)

Early Stooges short, a kind of Pygmalion affair with the Stooges hitting society as a result of a rich man's bet.The cultural gap between the UK and the US when it comes to the Stooges is bewildering- I don't know anyone else in the UK who has even seen a Stooges film (I'm talkig about intimate acquaintances here, I've not been out doing nationwide surveys or anything...), yet they seem part of the national heritage in the States. Which for me at least is a good thing, cos I'm coming to these things fresh. No baggage at all. And there's plenty here that's really funny. So do they still get regularly shown over there? Do schoolchildren know who they are? Important questions, important questions. In an odd way their casual violence, I'm sure, has been their undoing with regards to the UK (yeah, like they ever would have cared...)- however innocent, integral and cartoon-like, this kind of thing could never be sanctioned on our well-bred television screens! And you know what? That can make them seem a little bit dangerous even now.
The Pygmalion experiment fails of course- the flirtation with Society is a disaster. And yet perversely the best moment here is the outbreak of copycat Stooge violence that takes over the posh gathering as they make their final exit- the primal balance has been restored. The best moment, but perhaps not the funniest- that is surely the glorious scene where the Stooges are being lessoned in dance and their instructress falls victim to a wasp down her cleavage. This is the kind of silly slapstick that will always be a winner wherever it is shown.
I've seen about half a dozen Stooges films, all early ones, and like them all without coming close to loving them. This might have been the best of the batch so far. I still need to learn which Stooge is which though. British TV has left me down once again.

Fluttering Hearts (Chase 1927)

Chase is surely one of the most amiable of silent comedians (and one of the few that you could never refer to as a silent clown- he's just too suave and dashing for that)- here he is a self-made young millionaire who has to pretend, for predictably convoluted reasons, to be a chauffeur, in order to win the approval of a young charmer's father. It flits by like an innocent breeze, and Charley reeks of charisma even now. You do feel he could play well to modern audiences, certainly every bit as much as, say, Harold Lloyd, whose character seems more firmly rooted in the ambitions and hang-ups of the period.
The opening half drags rather, despite benefiting hugely from a turn as a good-natured cop by the irresistible Eugene Pallette. The silent movie policeman is a maligned and rarely well-represented character, but Pallette's cop is great, and he plays a lovely part in getting the two lovebirds together. The key scene early on though is a rather overblown drapery store scene, full of squabbling women and scenes of ass-kickin' 20s ultraviolence (well, to a degree...)- this may well have worked okay in cinemas with the laughter of a room full of people to sustain it, but it really drags now and doesn't even work towards any great pay-off. Fortunately the stuff to come, especially Charley's dance with the mannequin, and the rosy-faced Oliver Hardy flirting with the mannequin, more than compensate.
The score on the DVD I've seen was really lovely, but spoilt but a bunch of hugely annoying sound effects- who could possibly have thought these were a good idea?

Saps At Sea (Laurel & Hardy 1940)

Now this is lovely. It really is though, and I know I'm going against the grain somewhat here. Sure, it's hugely flawed, but by reputation the Boys were well into their decline by this point, and if you take 'Saps at Sea' purely on its own terms and snip out the wider historical overview completely I don't see how you can deny that it is really good fun. And you get a proper climactic fight too, with Ollie giving Nick the convict a pasting!
Ben Turpin has a wee cameo, Fin has a glorious scene as a doctor, and Harry Langdon was on the writing staff- this is like a last hurrah for the silent era. Even the goat's face rings a bell.
Ollie has a breakdown in a horn factory (yeah, the whole idea of the horn factory and the production line approach- I think disbelief has to get suspended here a bit...) and is prescribed a nice sea voyage by Doctor Fin. Unfortunately Ollie and Stan's ramshackle little craft has a murderous stowaway on board. There's not a whole lot more to it than that, but gags are milked at every opportunity, and most of them work well, even if they can be a tad familiar. The bunk scene for instance, with the goat in Stan's bed- this is done beautifully, tenderly even. Sure you're not dealing with material of the highest originality, but so often with Laurel and Hardy the appeal- damn it, let's come straight out and say it, the MAGIC- is as much to do with the chemistry, the performances, the subtleties of the interplay, as it is to do with the material the comedians happen to be performing with. You're left with an approach to comedy and an approach to entertaining the audience that transcends the film itself- hence the base level of quality for any Laurel and Hardy film is going to be significantly higher than it is going to be for, say, a Three Stooges film (and I've got no intention of getting all anti-Three Stooges here- they can at least be mentioned in the same sentence as Laurel and Hardy, and that's not to be sniffed at...) Practically none of their mature films, up to about the time of 'Saps at Sea', could be considered a failure, let alone could be regarded as unwatchable. Compare that with what was to come once Stan's artistic input was thrown out with the dishwater.
No, not a masterpiece, but hugely fun.

The Haunted House (Keaton 1921)

The last two or three Keaton shorts I've seen have been in the company of my 7 year old daughter, and I don't know whether it's the absence of her big grinning face for this one or the quality of the film itself that has left me a bit underwhelmed. And let's say from the off here that the concept of being 'underwhelmed' is a relative one- this is still Keaton and by no means is this just Keaton going through the motions. I think ultimately the problem with 'The Haunted House' is that it is basically two scenarios crammed into one film, and alas one of the scenarios is far more successful than the other. It's called 'The Haunted House' and not 'Glue in the Bank' for a reason.
Buster then is a bank cashier- one of his fellow cashiers is planning a heist and Buster gets framed for it. He ends up in a house that may or not be haunted alongside the gang of bankjob criminals and an opera troupe on the run. Okayyyy... Now the bank stuff is fine, it really is. There's some good inventive business with Buster opening up the bank and the payoff to the glue sequence- the 'hands up' bit- is sheer genius. But by golly the glue scene itself is a tirseome one. The idea is that Buster- bank cashier remember- gets glue all over his hands as he's handing out banknotes. (D'oh! How did dat happen?!) Frustration and hilarity ensue. Except that there's a whole lot more frustration than hilarity- it's a neat enough idea I guess, but it just doesn't play too well.
Fortunately once the haunted house shenanigans begin we move to a whole different level entirely. Buster and Eddie really do cram in every spooky gag they can think of here- and most of them work too. The level of constant invention is so impressive- the sequence by the staircase with the 'ghost' and the opera singer swapping places is a particular favourite.
So can we not just snip out the first reel or so completely? It's not as if it provides much of a set-up for the haunted house escapades anyway...

Mabel's Wilful Way (Normand / Arbuckle 1915)

This is a joy, especially coming on the back of 'That Little Band Of Gold' which was pleasant enough without ever coming close to knocking anything out of the park. They cram so much into ten minutes here! Now admittedly some of this is stuff you find yourself watching with your jaw slung low on the floor, but we are going to have to make some cultural allowances I think if we are intent on furthering this relationship...
Now the venerable IMDB is telling me that Al St John is playing 'vendor' here and Edgar Kennedy 'Fatty's pal' but even my slim knowledge of silent comedies is enough for me to stand here and bravely tell you that Al St John is Fatty's partner here. Fatty and Al then have a day's entertainment at the amusement park with straggly haired Mabel and her straight-laced folks. Bored at afternoon tea, Mabel wanders off from her guardians and encounters the rival lovers who proceed to battle each other- and anyone else who crosses their paths- for the girl's affections. Mabel ends up with a smacked bottom from her parents. This is far from being the oddest or most noteworthy moment in the film however.
You get, for yer money, an ice-cream eating bear, a horrendously bullied black chap, a practically psychotic cop, and an ingenious reversed-film fairground ride. I think more than anything else though you get a feeling of innocence (squirm inducing racism aside- though could we argue that the film-makers are only capturing what presumably was an example of a genuine fairground attraction? no, probably not...) and a feeling that this is young, brave, fearless America and anything's possible. The whole thing is lovely- fresh and spontaneous, just a good old-fashioned day at the fair turned into a single reel of gold.