Yet another short today, I'm sorry to say. Pre-hibernation, among other things, has rather messed up my time management in some areas including the blog.
Looking for a fun short, however, has introduced me to Max Linder for the first time, in this case in "Troubles of a Grass Widower" from 1908.
Max Linder was a French film pioneer and an international superstar inspiring other comedians, for example Charlie Chaplin who called him his professor.
He was known for his "Max" figure in tails and top hat.
Here's the plot of this little domestic comedy.
Max and his wife are sitting at the dinner table, Max refusing to stop hiding behind his newspaper. When his wife tells him angrily that she'll go back to her mother, Max is so overjoyed that he's doing a little dance.
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| Enjoy it while you can, Max. |
Then he realizes he has to deal with the household by himself now, from washing dishes ...
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| So much easier with the hose than with the brush, but of course he drops everything trying to take it back to the kitchen. |
... to grocery shopping and cooking ...
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| It's hard enough to keep control of the groceries without a lad trying to steal them. And too much pepper in a dish can make you sneeze and lose your pan (which is lucky in this case because shoe cleaning fluid doesn't make a good gravy). |
... cleaning the house and making the bed ...
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| Max is trying his best, but without much success. |
... but the worst of all is finding that darn tie!
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| It must be in one of those many closets! |
Wife and mother find Max in deep despair - think he's going to be nicer to her from now on (especially after she has cleared up the chaos he left for her)?
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| Help! |
Of course, this is a comedy about gender roles and the helpless man trying to tackle a household is not new to us, we know it as a plot in sitcoms and movies, but you have to keep in mind that this is from 1908 ... 117 years old (I'll never get over the age of those films)!
And Max Linder's performance of a husband going from overconfident to desperate is really charming.
Actually, thinking of it now some of it reminds me of Mr. Bean who is full of ingenious plans and good intentions, but usually messes up in the end, only that Max looks a lot less goofy.
This short definitely whetted my appetite for more of Max Linder who has more to offer than just a tad of slapstick from what I read.
By the way, in German we would call a person who is temporarily separated from their spouse (due to a trip for example) a "Strohwitwe/r" = "straw widow/er".
Sources:
1. Fritzi Kramer: Troubles of a Grass Widower (1908) - A silent movie review. On: Movies Silently, October 14, 2018
2. Marius Nobach: Chaplins Professor - Max Linder. Eine Würdigung von Max Linder, dem ersten Komiker-Star der Kinogeschichte, zum 100. Todestag am 1. November 2025. On: Filmdienst, November 17, 2025 (in German)
What a great post, love ❤️ the photos and I smiled at your mention of Mr. Bean. Thank 😊 you so much for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Linda! It was funny I only noticed that when I started writing the post. There you can see how many things have been around for so long and we don't even remember.
DeleteHow interesting to see that these gender roles were comedy over a century ago. I think my husband would probably be more like Max than not! I have not done a good job training him!
ReplyDeletehttps://marshainthemiddle.com/
When my then boyfriend and I moved in together, he had to train me! Being almost the youngest in a big family, my mother usually put me on tasks that didn't have to be done really quickly, like cooking or doing the laundry (simply because things weren't done with one load). I was the slowest Brussels sprout cleaner ever, for example, not because I did that on purpose to get out of doing it, but because I had no plan how much to clean off.
DeleteI love all these old movies you watch and need to look them up at some point. I am always blown away by how old many of the movies I watch are. It just doesn’t seem possible they were made so long ago yet still hold up as something we can relate to when it comes to discussions of social issues or family relationships etc. it reminds me that some things never change and that life back then wasn’t much different from life now in some ways
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing, isn't it? Soon the 30s movies I have started out with will be 100 years old!
DeleteI think people like to think that so much has changed when it's often just what's around them that has changed - technology, architecture, cities - but not they as humans.
That last comment was from me not anonymous.🤣
ReplyDeleteThat has happened to me before because sometimes Google will just kick you out! 🤣
DeleteI had never heard of him, but now I'm curious!
ReplyDeleteHe died in 1925. If he had been around for longer, I think more people would have heard of him like of the others who had longer careers. My German source about him made me really curious.
DeleteIt appears that some gender conflicts have been around for a very long time!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Mr. Bean …, we just watched the 3rd Johnny English movie, Johnny English Returns. Rowan Atkinson is a hoot.
What was interesting was that I came across a ridiculous review of this on IMDb saying it the movie was misandry for different reasons. The same person had only one other review of another short by Guy-Blaché (that I had thought about watching, but didn't) saying pretty much the same things. Gender conflicts are neverending, that's for sure!
DeleteI like that Atkinson can also do serious - I really liked him in the Maigret adaptations and would have loved if there had been more - but can be so hilariously ridiculous if he wants.
Thanks for sharing this silent movie! It does remind me of Mr. Bean as well.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.kathrineeldridge.com
Some things are just timeless! Thank you, Kathrine!
DeleteI remember the old Chaplin movies becaus my dad used to watch them when I was a kid. But the black movies he watched the most were the Laurel & Hardy series. I actually still remember short pieces of those black and white short movies.
ReplyDeleteI think all of us who are of a certain generation have those bits and pieces in our heads. I only started a few months ago to actively look for silent movies to watch, and of course Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy are included!
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