Actor Larry Semon was a famous silent comedian with a pretty distinctive style. His films had the style of cartoons, with a plenty of chases (often involving more than one means of transportation) and special effects. The cartoon influence is no coincidence, as Semon used to be a cartoonist and graphic artist prior to his career in films. His films also had elaborate sceneries and a good edition work stringing the gags together.

In the first scene we see a rather cute girl walking her dog in a unusual way, which gives a funny touch to the scene. Then, there is a man with a big fake beard behind her. The girl rejects the man and keeps walking (running, actually). She sits on a outdoors bench and the man sits besides her. Then she realizes there was already another man sitting on the bench and she does not get happy about it.

All of a sudden, it appears a man who was behind the bushes and this third man also sits on the bench. Apparently, the girl had a plenty of prospective suitors, although all of them seemed to bore her to death. As if it was not enough to have three suitors, a fourth man shows up. He was a policeman and got to kick out all the other men, but he did not please the girl either and ended up being bitten by her dog.

After a short time, Larry appears and she seems to like him very much. Even her dog was very pleased to see Larry. While the policeman confronted Larry, the other three suitors showed up again. Larry managed to kick out the policeman and in this very scene we can see a special effect similar to those of cartoons that is very typical of films by actor Larry Semon.

But the other suitors do not give up and here they are again. Anyway, the dog was able to get rid of them this time, although the dog was really tiny. Judging by the speed and fear of those men we could think they were running from a lion or any other wild animal.

Larry had problems with some kids, who tie up the dog with some balloons as a revenge. Consequently, the dog ended up flying away. All other suitors show up once more and the girl promises her “hand and fortune” to the man who gets to save her dog. This generates a chase involving all characters of the film, who tried to save the dog as fast as they could.

The dog finally landed safely in the hands of his owner, then Larry goes away with the girl in a balloon, together with the dog. The other suitors try to prevent them from leaving, but it is useless. 

There appeared three men in a house, all of them with completely fake beards and they start opening a hole on the floor. Then, we suddenly see three other people eating on a fancy table, two men and a girl. 

We soon realize that the men with fake beards were located in upstairs floor to the one where the three other people were having a meal and the bearded men “fish” the food from those people who were eating on the table with the assistance of a piece of rope and hooks.  

The people on the table were served more food. At the same time, the girl left to another room with a chubby guy. While the food was served, the bearded men fished the whole tray. It brings some disturbance to the people who were eating on the table, as it’s not always easy to lift food to the upstairs floor without spilling any of, after all.

Meanwhile, the girl was dancing in the ball room with the chubby guy and a generalized fight took place, which made some of those men being kicked out of the place. In the middle of all mess, the girl was crying and was comforted by a waiter

A short time later, the waiter and the girl share a table and eat some ice cream. The men gather together, go upstairs and ask for some help from the bearded men who were “fishing” their food.  They wanted the help to teach a lesson to the guy who was sharing a meal with the girl. So, all guys throw a piece of rope from upstairs’ hope. The guy who was on the table with the girl was smoking and accidentally sets the tip of the rope on fire. It would not be a big deal weren’t for the fact that there was a bomb tied on the other tip of rope. The bomb fell down and ended up on the table where the girl and the waiter were sitting. But the waiter gets to throw the bomb on the street before it explodes.

The guys try to throw another bomb from the upper floor, but the waiter gets to prevent it from exploding. Actually, the waiter escaped all attempts of throwing a bomb at him by the other guys.

The waiter run away and took shelter in a ball room. He was followed by the other guys, who carried guns and tried to shoot the waiter, but it does not work and the waiter got to escape unscratched all threats against his life. 

This film has some simple, but effective, special effects and a quick slapstick pacing, which are the strong points of this film. Physical gags were just average, which was compensated by good edition and camera use.

Urban chaos x countryside peacefulness was already an issue in some places back to 1920s, which makes this comedy relate to modern-day audiences more than average silent films would. The subject matter has not really got old.

The perplexity of the countryman, who had to go to the city to purchase things, is something we can easily understand and the fact that nowadays big cities are far busier than the city portrayed in this film only makes the gags funnier. 

The countryman is played by Will Rogers, a actor who who would become quite famous a short time later. He played the role of a countryman who lived in the White Horse Ranch, which was located far back in the woods. It is easy to assume that its dwellers were not often in touch with big cities. Roger is given the assignment to purchase “a bottle of Doane’s Horse Liniment”. After a while, he reaches the edge of town and slowly streets become busier with both cars and people. Rogers, his horse and slower life pace represent symbols of a era that was already fading back to 1920s.

The car was one of symbols of modernity. And it is even shown a Ford factory. Rogers managed to easily enter the factory and ended up taking one of its cars without anyone opposing resistance to it. He has lots of difficulty to drive among the heavy traffic of busy streets of the city. Then, he has to face the challenge of finding a parking space, perferably near a drugstore. There were not vacancies available and parking limitations did not make any sense to the countryman, who was not really used to those rules. He ended up parking the car extremely distant from his destination.

This situation gives room to some very funny gags involving cars, which was not something uncommon in filsm produced by Hal Roach studios, and such gags were even present in some Laurel and Hardy late silents. 

Finally, the end has a touch of irony. After Rogers finally reaches the drugstore and tell the salesman what he wants to buy, the salesman tells him that the liniment has not been produced for twenty years, which definitively shows that the country dwellers were no longer in touch with the modern world and its trends.

In this film we can already see the situational comedies by Hal Roach studios at their full splendor with all typical elements: slower pace compared with slapstick comedies (specially those produced by rival Keystone studios in the 1910s), a focus on realistic situations in more sophisticated settings, witty intertitles. One of most common subject matters of Hal Roach films.

A young Stan Laurel plays the role of a janitor in rather average gags and this film does not really indicate he would become a start less than a decade later. 

There is a mention to a “vampire” and we can’t help remembering Theda Bara, who reached the peak of her short-lived popularity back to 1910s by playing the role of mysterious vamps, who seduced men, wrecked their marriages and brought them to ruin and misery. Of course a “faithless husband” (who is dressed up in a fairly sophisticated way, which leads the audience think he might be a wealthy man) falls prey to her seductiveness. Well, she is not as seductive as she could be and the parody of the screen vamp generates some funny gags, like when the vamp is rather to kiss the unfaithful husband, she ends up sneezing.

The janitor causes a plenty of embarrassments with his vacuum cleaner while he is cleaning the hall in a hotel, specially when he accidentally vacuums the dress of a young lady. 

After a while, the husband is caught in the act with the vamp by his wife and she claims she is going to shoot both him and the vamp. The janitor hears the noise of a shot, enters the room. Meanwhile, the vamps trying to defend herself by throwing a vase on the enraged wife, but ends up hitting the janitor instead. 

After another incident, the unfaithful husband realized the vamp was flirting with another man right under his nose. He realizes he was wasting his marriage with a good woman and decides to reconcile with his wife, to the amazement of the janitor, who had just witnessed the wife about to shoot her husband. 

Compared with 1910s comedies that made his former Keystone studios famous, Mack Sennett really adjusted his short films to tastes of audiences of the Jazz Age. This film is more situational-oriented, slower and intertitles were all witty, in the same style that made rival Hal Roach studios famous. However, some characteristics of the previous decade output with Keystone studios remain alive in this film, like ridiculous fake beards and eccentric characters.

This is a witty comedy and, although it talks about common-life situations, it devises some gags based on absurdity (specially on how ridiculous people they can behave when completely in love) and stereotypes on country people. There’s a fine cast, with some of most popular actors of Mack Sennett studios back to 1920s, specially cross-eyed Ben Turpin, who was at the height of his career. Speaking of Turpin, the first intertitles of the film provide a good sum up of his career (which started before 1910) and how his artistic style was honed throughout the years. It’s very much worth paying attention to this reading.

It was hard to be more eccentric than Ben Turpin and his cross-eyed figure. He plays the role of Rodney St. Clair, a poor boy who was happily in love with Lizzie Boone, a rather innocent, hayseed country girl (played be actress Thelma Hill). They both enjoyed their love in idyllic countryside scenery and peace ruled. Although they were about to get married, both Rodney and Lizzie also had unrequited love from other suitors.

Things started changing when Rodney went to a big city in order to earn some extra money (“butter and egg money”) and attracted the attention of gold-digger vamp Gertie Gray (played by Madeline Hurlock). Gertie was the opposite of Lizzie. The vamp was modern, cosmopolitan, dressed up according to the latest fashion, but she was a sneaky person.

When Rodney is back home the wedding was already ready, but he unfortunately ended up taking the vamp woman home with him, without any consideration for Lizzie’s feelings. Then, Rodney tells an absurd (and unreal story) on how he had met the vamp in the big city and why his marriage with Lizzie was supposed to be off.

Finally, Rodney learns on the real unfaithful character of the vamp woman, who kissed a plenty of men behind his back, including his own father, which even caused a fight between father and son. The role of Rodney’s Father was played by Andy Clyde, in a hilarious performance of an aged man, with a ridiculous fake beard, who couldn’t accept his old age.

But it was too late for him to return to Lizzie. She had already married her other suitor, while Rodney was left all alone, with both of his former sweethearts turning their backs on him. 

Rhythmic cutting, machine movement, a progressist place, being driven by the industrialization and its hardworking inhabitants. A promising city, which would soon be one of most economically strong cities of Latin America. Or at least, that was the view of the film makers, who were clearly influenced by the film Berlin, Symphony of a City (1927).

The industrial vocation of São Paulo is fully shown in this film, alternating the movement of machines with showing its dwellers in a collective way. Perhaps the only exception to this collective mentioning of people is the historical reconstitution of Independence proclamation of Brazil, which took place at September 7th 1882. The reconstitution is rather romanticized, showing it as a act of bravery against the oppression of Portuguese colonizers, which was expressed in the rather famous expression (supposedly said by future emperor Dom Pedro I, “Independence or death”). 

It is interesting that the director did not avoid showing the poorest citizens and focused on a wide range of people. It was even mentioned the fact that there were beggars in the city, although they were not directly shown and the needy citizens would be supported by the generosity of the wealthier ones. 

While people were shown, it was also highlighted the means of transport (mostly cars, streetcars and trains). We can see that nearly everyone who walked on the streets were men, which involuntarily portrayed feminism in Brazil pretty accurately. Apart from the environment of elementary schools, taking and picking up children from schools and one or two women dentists in the Odontology College, we do not really see women both in outdoors environments or working out of home. Women were much more socially limited there than their counterparts in Northern hemisphere. For instance, divorce would only be officially approved in Brazil in the 1970s and, apart from being teachers and nurses, female work was not really common among middle classes and, actually, frowned upon by many people, including women themselves, who would find it shocking and against the nurturing female nature. 

It is very interesting that a penitentiary was shown and portrayed as a place where inmates received a human treatment because crime was considered merely a “moral disease” and reformation was quite possible. And criminals themselves worked both in the penitentiary itself and were occupied with manual labor and treated with military discipline and it was made clear to them that discipline would be a decisive factor for them to succeed once they were reintegrated into society again. Inmates were also exposed to the Catholic church (which matches the fact that the entire Latin America was strongly Catholic at the time) and it was made clear that religion was not something mandatory, probably to avoid audiences consider that proselytism was taking place in the prison and to emphasize that the religious teaching and masses were mostly part of the attempts to improve moral values of criminals.

Another interesting thing is that the city, both among poor and wealthy citizens, was always ordered, morally organized. Even when people were having fun out of home they were never seen engaged in drinking, womanizing, or in any illegal activity. After all, they were law-abiding, honest citizens, working hard to build a better, urbanized country being grounded on the wonders of technology. Not coincidently, we see airplanes in the end of the film, one of utmost symbols of technology and progress back then. At the same time, it is implied the huge influence of exportation of coffee and coffee plantations in the income of São Paulo, which shows how agricultural São Paulo still was despite all urbanization and industries. 

The role of sports and military were also praised in this film, as being both beneficial to youths (all of them men, btw) and that the military were working to build a better country with their bravery. A touch of militarism, which is too clear to be ignored and its influence was present in the overall culture of Latin American countries both in 1920s and 1930s. This is not surprising specially because São Paulo was also already at the 1920s the city that received the bulk of Italian immigrants in Brazil and Mussolini’s fascism was already a nasty reality in Italy since 1922.

A film with the typical elements of a Keystone comedy of 1910s: Misunderstandings, fake mustaches, Keystone cops, chases, a damsel in distress, a simple plot. The paced is slightly slower than the frantic pace of Keystone comedies, though. 

Another interesting particularity of this film is a very young Charley Chase, prior to his heyday with situational comedies of Hal Roach studios in the 1920s. 

A banker and his daughter do not seem to be particularly skilled when it comes to cooking, so they decide to look for a cook through a newspaper advertisement. Two crooks read the advertisement and decide to infiltrate one of them in the banker’s house with the purpose of stealing him. 

But the banker’s daughter also has a secret. She has a suitor who her father does not approve of. Therefore, they both decide to elope and the suitor sends her a note telling her to get ready and leave the house as soon as he whistles. The problem is that the crooks had used the whistle as a code too, so they could leave the banker’s house without being noticed. To make matters worse, at the exact moment when both the crook and the banker’s daughter were waiting for their respective whistles, a policeman shows up at the banker’s house. 

Both the crook and the suitor appear in the banker’s house almost at the same time and they managed to get both the girl and his accomplice. The problem is that the suitor picked up the crook and the crook’s accomplice picked up the banker’s daughter instead. The banker realized there was something wrong, releases the cop (who was locked inside the kitchen of his house) and a chase occurs, very much within standards of Keystone studios’ chases.

When it comes to the chase (which is typically at the end of the film), the part of it that take takes place in a pier and portrays a plenty of characters (including the Keystone cops themselves) falling on the sea from a pier, is very similar to the final chase of famous feature length film Tillie’s Punctured Romance, produced by the same Keystone studios in the previous year of 1914. For those who have seen both films, I would strongly recommend to pay attention to what those chases have in common.

Opposite to what some people might think on first inspection, Mack Sennett did not start starring and directing comedies when he founded the Keystone studios in the second semester of 1912. He already did both back to the days when he worked for Biograph studios, the same studio that gave D.W. Griffith to the world. 

Sennett was in charge of comedies of Biograph and we can see in his output the initial elements he would further develop at Keystone studios, even actress Mabel Normand already worked for him. At the time, comedy shorts where usually one-reelers, which means they lasted around 11 minutes, and the length of films was slowly increased in the next few years. 

Although this film does not have the frantic pace of subsequent films by Keystone, we can see Sennett shaping his own style. He plays Mabel Normand’s sweetheart, but his girl is stolen from him by the cigar drummer, as the first intertitle says. The drummer takes Mabel to a park, where he starts to court her and Sennett follows them.

It is interesting that the drummer is shown as having “stolen” the girl from her old sweetheart (Sennett), but the plot does not show Mabel’s side of the story, why she left Sennett, etc. which can be perhaps interpreted as a effect of a more chauvinistic society or merely there was no time to make a deeper psychological development of the characters, as films where still very short on early 1910s. 

Mabel takes the drummer to a house and  he “makes a hit with the girl’s folks”, which means that her friends instantly liked him very much. Then, there was a party and Sennett’s character was not invited. He’s still following the new couple, as he was very upset to have lost Mabel’s love. Sennett even tried to enter the party, but his presence disturbed the group and he was kicked out by some of the guests.

A short time later, “the drummer makes the taffy” and he left the candy at the window to cool. Upon seeing it, Sennett realized he would have a perfect opportunity for revenge, so he ruined the candy, so the party’s guests would put the blame on the drummer. At first, his plan worked and the guests detested the taffy, but after a while Sennett is found out even though it does not prevent him from winning Mabel’s love back.

Although it is just a one reeler, the film lacked some more development of the character’s reason’s, which would have given a even better understanding of the plot by the audience. However, the film is a valuable witness of lifestyle of an era and its humor matched the kind of humor that was made at its time. 

We can see in the cast of this film two comedians who subsequently developed their careers in completely different ways. Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, was a skilled actor and director, who reached the peak of his career by making memorable films with Buster Keaton at the end of 1910s. It seemed he would enjoy the same success in feature length films, but his career was suddenly interrupted by a scandal in 1921, where he was accused of rape.

Charley Chase became famous in Hal Roach studios at the 1920s, where he acted and directed in many so-called situational comedies, which had more life-like, realistic situations than 1910s slapstick comedies and without the frantic pace. Chase also had the distinction of helping to create the famous “Our Gang” kid comedies, which lasted until the sound era. 

This film has a very simply plot and lots of broad gestures by the cast members. Two guys from a big city were driving in the countryside, when they had a flat tire and were helped by locals.

One of city guys lures the girlfriend of one of countrymen to go to the big city with him. The girl hesitated, but ended up running off with the city guy and her former sweetheart got desolated when he read her farewell note. 

Meanwhile, the city guy takes the girl to a sort of dancing club in the city, although the girl does not seem to be happy about it and the environment seems to be a bit wild for a innocent country girl.

Determined to win his girl back, her former sweetheart goes to the city to try to take her back home. This was a good thing, as the girl was apparently engaged in forced labor in the club and regretted having gone away. The city guy who took her away also treated the girl in a very rude way and even threatened her. 

When the girl started being attacked by the city guy, her former boyfriend got to find out where she was. It is not shown in the film how he found out her whereabouts in such big city, though but this sort of psychological development was hard to be done due to time constraints of 1 reel films (which usually lasted around 11 minutes only). Seeing his girl was in serious danger, the country boy beat up all bad men in the club and saved her. In the end, he proposed to her sweetheart and she accepted it.

The flat tire in a country place provides a good metaphor to the encounter of two completely different lifestyles: The modern, big city-related life, with access to new technologies X a more conservative, relaxed, naïve lifestyle of country people. In the 1910s urbanization was still a relatively new phenomena, which provided new challenges to people and the enchantment with the bright lights of the city could be a trap to those who were unaccustomed to it.

Max Linder, the pioneer of French comedy, managed to develop a quite simple plot, keeping his subtle, naturalistic acting without broad gestures or loosing the typical dignity of his character, who was merely a normal man who suddenly found himself in trouble. Although his character was by no means rich, he was a honest citizens with morals. 

In this film Max had problems with nervous twitching, went to the doctor and was prescribed a cold bath every day for one month, as the first intertitle says. An interesting detail in this initial scene is the beautiful chair where Max sits in, which is worthy paying attention. He is also shown as having some tics, but never in a goofy way. He was a rather serious man, who was trying to treat his health problem. 

However, Max did not have a bathtub at home. He solved this problem by buying a ornate bathtub, but problems started as soon as he left the store and did not find anyone who would take the bathtub home to him. Thus, the only solution was to bring it home on his own back, which took Max lots of physical effort. 

Problems seemed solved when Max got to take the bathtub to his apartment, but it was only the beginning of all trouble because he had not previously realized there was no tap in his home. The closest tap available was in the nearby corridor. So, he thought he could go outside and fill the tub with one jar of water at a time.

Realizing it would take too long, he decided to bring the bathtub to the corridor and take a bath there, but it was when all problems escalated. Obviously, neighbors did not like to see Max wetting the corridor and washing himself in public and the police was called.

He was taken to the police department together with the bathtub, a discussion happened and Max got to run away in the middle of the chaos and, again, he left together with his bathtub. A chase takes place and even a dog was involved. 

Then, one of the most interesting moments of the film is when Max climbs the building while he was still in the bathtub. It is pretty obvious that the scenery was actually painted on the floor. Although the camera was apparently suspended, the drawings on the floor are too obvious to pass undetected. But it was a pretty ingenious special effect for 1910. Max got to enter his building by the roof and got rid of his chasers by hitting them with the bathtub and this is how the film ends. Considering this film is a one reeler (lasting around 11 minutes, sometimes even slightly less), the sudden ends were a consequence of time constraints and not necessarily a result of bad quality of the film. 

Although this short comedy was not particularly innovative (even the painted scenery was relatively common in films up to 1910) it is entertaining enough and is very historically valuable because it gives a example of how very early comedies were made.