Silent movies - Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde

I have a confession to make. I have always been a bigger fan of Stan Laurel than of Oliver Hardy. It's probably that underdog thing again.
That's also the reason why I have Stan on my fan wall of bead loomed portraits, but not Ollie (although I did design pendants of both once).

While Laurel and Hardy appeared in a movie together for the first time in 1921, they did only become an official team in 1927.
My silent movie for today is from 1925 and there's just Stan in it which is a first for me. It's called "Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde".
Am I picking up on last week's post with this? Yes and no. Of course, this is a parody of the 1920 "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" movie, but I found this short film first which then led to the other one. I just thought it would be a good idea to start with the original.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
(you see both "Pryde" and "Pride" in the title)

As usual, here's the plot with spoilers.

"Dr. Stanislaus Pyckle was the most respected man in town - Heaven knows why --" (unfortunately it seems to be the case that the funny intertitles are not original to the film, but at least try to imitate the jokes and puns of that time).

We see Dr. Pyckle in his laboratory walking back and forth, thinking about how to separate Good and Evil in the human mind - surprisingly watched by an audience of men and his lovely lab assistant.

His first experiments don't go the way he wants them - there are a few nice occasions for some slapstick here - but then inspiration strikes and at last he concocts a potion (why do they always have to look so foamy?).

The transformation is a hilarious take on Barrymore's dramatic one. Dr. Pyckle's legs seem to turn to rubber and he jumps through his lab before falling down behind one of his contraptions and getting back up as Mr. Pryde.

With an evil smile, he makes his way into town. And evil he truly is!
His first victim is a small boy with an ice cream cone. Mr. Pryde pulls him towards himself with his cane, steps on his foot to keep him from escaping, and takes his ice cream away. To add insult to injury, he pulls the boy's cap over his eyes.
The horror!

When he hits another boy with a pea shooter, a crowd follows Mr. Pryde to the lab, but he knocks them all out with one single blow from his pea shooter which gives him time to change back to Dr. Pyckle and deny having seen anyone.
Unfortunately, some of the potion has dripped down into the dog's food and turns him into an evil creature ... going for Pyckle's butt.

Do you recognize him from the Buster Brown films?

Pryde's fiendish actions don't end here, he keeps terrorizing the town.
He offers a flower to an old lady, but it's really a blow tickler which frightens her.
He puts a brick under a hat, so the nearing policeman will hit his foot the brick when he tries to kick the hat (instead the brick hits Pryde in the head when he does).
He pops a paper bag behind an unsuspecting woman.
He taunts a man by putting a finger trap on him.
Will he stop at nothing?

This time an even bigger mob follows him to the lab and again he barely escapes by taking the potion.
His lovely assistant is worried about him, though, and asks him to be let in. By now Pyckle who has run out of the potion has changed back to Pryde, so it's him who opens the door. He winks at her, she hits him over the head with a bottle. He slips his head into the necklace she's wearing.
At that moment, the mob arrives at the lab door again and ......!

Yeah, sorry, that's it. Unfortunately, the ending is lost. That is a bit of an anticlimax, but maybe you want to make up your own ending.

I don't mind saying that I really had fun with this, especially after having watched the feature film the day before.
Laurel's slapstick is spoofing Barrymore's slightly over the top Hyde (not that I didn't enjoy that) perfectly.
I think I liked best how he kept stroking his incredible wig.
Oh, and the way he jumped through town.
No, wait! His hands were the best making fun of Barrymore's long fingers.

Okay, so I simply liked the whole short and it made me laugh more than I had expected.
I really wonder what the ending was as the mob got bigger with each little prank Pryde pulled and he had no chance to escape anymore, especially by practically catching himself in that necklace (I bet that was important for the ending).

I don't think you need to see the 1920 film to have fun with this little comedy, but it makes it even better.


Sources:

1. Fritzi Kramer: Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde (1925) - A silent film review. On: Movies Silently, July 1, 2018
2. "prettycleverfilmgal": The Trickster Imp | Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde. On: Pretty Clever Films, June 9, 2011
3. D. Cairns: The Sunday Intertitle: Another Fine Pyckle. On: Shadowplay, September 3, 2017