Silent movies - Lonesome Luke, Messenger

Have you ever heard of Lonesome Luke? Chances are good that you know the actor who adopted a different and much more widely known persona after Luke, but will you recognize him?
Today I have a short from 1917 for you - Lonesome Luke, Messenger.

Here's the "plot".

Luke and Snub are messengers.
 

One day, they are supposed to deliver some big parcels to a girls' seminary school.
Luke gets "invited" in by one of the girls and immediately thrown out again by the matron which only increases his and Snub's urge to get back in.

That's no stuntman rolling down the stairs!

Snub makes it in as a contractor asks him if he wants to fill in for his "paper hanging assistant" who's late.
Luke finally manages by posing as a lineman and announcing that it's "free telephone sample day".
As you can imagine wallpaper, glue, ladders, and cables allow for ample slapstick action.

It's pure chaos from here - people trying to escape from one another, running here and there, crawling down chimneys, dangling on telephone wires, and in the end everyone chases Luke!

Pouting girls, but Luke hasn't given up yet.

The first escape.

Aaaand he's back.

The second escape. Nice jump!

From the autobiography: "The cunning thought behind all this, you will observe, was to reverse the Chaplin outfit. All his clothes were too large, mine all too small. My shoes were funny, but different; my mustache funny, but different. Nevertheless, the idea was purely imitative and was recognized as such by audiences, though I painstakingly avoided copying the well-known Chaplin mannerisms. ... Not only was the get-up imitative, but it was an offense to the eye originally. I cleaned it up as time went on until it was self-respecting before it died, but I do not like to recall it ...
I was convinced both that the character had gone as far as we could take him and that I had a better."

And he had. Did you recognize him?
It's Harold Lloyd before he came up with the "glass character" that we think of when we hear his name today.

Actually, the look with the glasses - which didn't have lenses, by the way - became so iconic that it seems every time someone else wears round glasses in a silent movie, people comment "He looks like Harold Lloyd!" although the glasses are the only similarity. People even had a hard time recognizing Lloyd if he didn't wear them.

Back to Lonesome Luke, though.
67 films were produced between 1915 and 1917 - one reelers took them about a week to make -, but most of them are lost now. I read in a post that only 14 of them survived, in a later comment on a video it said they found some more and are now up to 18. Still not that much.
If you think that today's short doesn't sound like much, you are right. However, you have to keep in mind that this was in 1917. The idea of films and of comedy in particular were still very different then ... or was it? To be honest, seeing some of today's comedy it really doesn't feel like that sort of humor is gone completely.
Take falls, for example. Why have been home video shows with people falling into lakes, off chairs or stages, etc. been so popular? Schadenfreude. Falls were a big thing in silent movies, and as you know by now, the actors often did their stunts themselves. How about Lloyd rolling down those stone steps? I sometimes have a hard time watching these things and yell "ouch" a lot, but I know enough people who'd still find that as hilarious as an audience over 100 years ago.

Luke was popular with the audience, but Lloyd wanted more than chases and pratfalls.
Actually, before starting to read his autobiography I hadn't known that his beginnings were not in being a comedian, but a stage hand, grip, stage manager, assistant electrician, etc. - at a young age - but also playing small and then bigger roles.
"Hence I knew my theater from Shakspere to the xylophone players." (That's no typo, there used to be different spellings for the Bard.)
Then his father moved to California, Harold started working as an extra in movies and met Hal Roach who was another extra at the time but then started producing at the Bradbury mansion (torn down in 1929 for a parking lot).
Do you recognize the stairs?

Picture by Lemuel S. Ellis, ca. 1887, via The Huntington Digital Library

I can see how someone who had worked theatrical ambitions from early on might get bored with Luke eventually, and of course Harold Lloyd will stay "The Boy with the Glasses" for most of us which I'm sure he would prefer.


Sources and further reading:

1. Harold Lloyd with Wesley W. Stout: An American Comedy. New York : Dover Publications, 1971 (unabridged republication, with minor corrections, of the 1928 work)
2. Trav S. D.: Lonesome Luke's Lively Life: Hal Roach, Harold Lloyd and the Rolin Film Co. On: Travalanche, July 31, 2025
3. John Bengtson: Harold Lloyd Takes A Chance on Court Hill. On: Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd film locations (and more), January 1, 2014
4. John Bengtson: Lady Cops (and Harold Lloyd) Reveal 1914 Lost LA Treasures. On: Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd film locations (and more), December 12, 2021

Silent movies - The Scarecrow

How about some more Buster Keaton? Today's movie is one of his two-reelers - The Scarecrow from 1920.

Here's the plot (spoiler alert):

Two farmhands live together in a house on a farm. Both of them are in love with the farmer's daughter, but her father (played by Keaton's father Joe) isn't having it and sends her back to the house.

After she has baked a cream pie for him and put it on the window sill for cooling, her mother shows her an article about an dancer, so she shows that she can dance as well.
Buster is shocked to see his beloved in his housemate's arms.

A heart gets broken.

Meanwhile, the dog has eaten the cream pie and when Buster sees him with the cream around his mouth, he thinks the dog is rabid.

That is some good pie!

A wild chase ensues during which Buster loses his clothes, but he and the dog become friends.

Friends in the hay. Such a good boy.

He goes back to the farm where the girl is still dancing, but faints seeing him in his underwear.
Now Buster is being chased by her father. He quickly pretends to be the scarecrow after putting on its clothes. When the father and housemate find out, they both chase him. Then he runs into the girl and seeing him kneel as he ties his shoe, she thinks he's proposing to her and accepts.

Oh Buster, this is so sudden.

They escape from Dad and the other farmhand first by horse, then by motorcycle, and on the way happen to scoop up a reverend who marries them while being chased.

... man and wife!

This was absolutely hilarious.
The film begins with the two farmhands in their tiny house with just one room which has a lot to offer, though. The phonograph is also a stove, the tub is also a couch, the bookcase an icebox.

Put some gas in the "jukebox" to fry the bacon!

Other things like salt and sugar hang on strings from the ceiling and can easily be let down and pulled up again. Just this part would be worth watching the movie, it's like a beautiful choreography.

A game of "Catch the Bottle".

The chase is even funnier, though.
I had a really good loud laugh that I hadn't expected. Then again I hadn't known I would meet a new heartthrob. Douglas, I'm sorry, move over, there's a new kid in town and his name is Luke.
I was so impressed by this dog that I literally squealed with joy a few times. He was amazing!

Up the ladder, down the ladder. I'm in love!

So I looked Luke up and found that the English Bull Terrier (the breed was later acknowledged as American Staffordshire Terrier) was the dog of actor Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and his wife Minta Durfee who is said to have got him as a six week old puppy as a bonus for a particularly difficult stunt. Arbuckle taught Luke tricks and allegedly he earned $150 a week.
"The Scarecrow" for which Arbuckle lent him to his protégé Keaton was Luke's last film. Durfee got him when she and Arbuckle got a divorce, but her ex-husband got visitation rights ... well, and I like to imagine Luke had a happy life, maybe chasing a squirrel every, now and then, until his death in 1926. He was 13 years old.

You may think you already know the movie now with all the screenshots I shared, but there are so many gags in this fast-paced film that you haven't seen anything. Not in an overwhelming or hectic way, though. Everything is so well planned, yeah, it's really just a joy to watch.
And don't forget, there's Luke.
You know I don't insist on anyone watching silent movies just because I do, but in this case - watch it. Invest those 18 minutes.

Yes, he'll jump. With ease.

Sources:

1. Lea Stans: A Salute to Luke the Dog. On: Silent-ology, July 20, 2017
2. Luke the Dog on Wikipedia

Silent movies - Buon Anno!

For today I managed to find a silent film which works perfectly as "Buon Anno" means "Happy New Year".
"Buon Anno" is an Italian short from 1909.
The "plot" - you can hardly call it that - is told very quickly.

New Year's Day. A man is getting
ready to go out and looking
forward to it. He has put on some
scent, has had his coffee, and
he's in a good mood.

Not even out of the house yet, he's
offered calendars by the servant
and the mailman who on this
occasion expect a tip.

The more people push for a
New Year's tip, the more aggravated
the man gets. The concierge gets a
tip, but he throws the calendar on the
the ground. At the café, he's so annoyed
that he knocks over the table. At the
barber's he shoves the two men.

In the street, he runs into more
people trying to escape the Happy
New Year wishes and they all chase
after him (turning this into a classic
chase film), even after the police
turns up to take him away.
He starts having hallucinations
about all those people carrying
calendars ... 

... and the images even follow
him to the police station.

Finally, he's allowed to go, but not
before one last calendar pops up.

On one page it said that "obsession lurks in the symbolic places of the bourgeois social ritual" and that "time doesn't stop and chases us everywhere".
Maybe I'm too simple a person, but I don't see this short as more than a man being annoyed by the tradition of people expecting a tip at certain times. I remember one time years ago when someone rang my bell on Christmas Eve yelling "Mail" only to then "notice" that they didn't even have mail for me. It was the first time they ever rang, and although I am usually a tipper, I was stubborn in that particular case. So I kind of get that the man was overwhelmed (who was played by Ernesto Vaser, one of the first Italian film comedians).

I like what I think might be a little homage to Georges Méliès near the end with the moon winking at the man over the dancing calendar leaves (done in stop-motion).

I wish you all a very Buon Anno, Frohes Neues Jahr, Happy New Year!


Sources:

1. JEC: Buon Anno ! (1909) Happy New Year. On: A Cinema History, October 2023
2. Museo Nazionale del Cinema: Restaurations - Silent Films - Buon anno!

Silent movies - Foolshead's Christmas (1911)

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it!
I come with gifts! Well, one gift. Okay, a silent movie. Christmas or not, it's Thursday.
But guess what, this movie is about gifts as well, what a coincidence (or not)!
It's "Il Natale di Cretinetti" - "Foolshead's Christmas" in English - from 1911, not to confuse with the film of the same name from 1909.

Here's the plot with spoilers.
Foolshead is going to a Christmas party. Carrying loads of gifts and a tree, he runs into a mailman with just as many parcels.

In the chaos he grabs one wrong parcel, though. It contains three bottles with "ether de peur", "ether de gaîté", and "ether de colère" which cause fear, joy, and rage.
I wonder who concocted those and how, and whom did they intend to have them and for what purpose?

When Foolshead literally falls into the apartment headfirst, the bottles break and give off a revolting smoke, so he hides the box under a table.
The family comes out to welcome him and he hands them some of the gifts, none of which make sense, like a tiny pair of shoes for the father and a rocking horse for the grown-up daughter.

When the father holds a speech which impresses everyone very much, the effects of the ethers begin to manifest, first on Foolshead, then on all the others when the smoke is spreading through the whole flat.
All the guests take turns in being afraid, overjoyed, and angry - shaking, dancing and laughing, and attacking one another, but they don't necessarily show the same reactions at the same time.
Next the smoke makes its way to the kitchen, then to a sculptor whose sculptures first become alive and then break into bits.

The policeman called in by the father is affected, the neighbors are, and the chaos ensuing makes the whole house shake and break apart in a big cloud of rubble and smoke.
Merry Christmas, Foolshead!

André Deed was a French film pioneer, actor, scriptwriter, and director.
Deed was the first silent movie star of his country. After being a singer and acrobat, he worked in film for Georges Méliès, then for the production company Pathé-Frères. During that time, he developed the character of Boireau.
In 1909, he was invited to Italy where he starred as Cretinetti in more than 90 shorts. In 1912, he went back to France making more shorts as Boireau, and three years later he returned to Italy to revive the Cretinetti series.
Due to the First World War and the American film industry taking over, his career came to an end and he was mostly forgotten.

Deed was known for camera-trick gags (influenced by the work of Méliès) and slapstick.
His Cretinetti shorts were internationally successful and other countries adapted the name to their languages, Foolshead in English, Gribouille in French, Müller in German (except for this film).

Do you remember Max Linder from one of my recent posts? In a blog I read that Linder and Deed were the "yin and yang of early film comedy", Linder charming and elegant, Deed a frantic idiot creating chaos and destruction. Foolshead certainly did that in this short, albeit involuntarily!

If you like a bit of slapstick, this is a fun little film to watch.
Oh, and I love those dresses!


Sources:

1. Anthony Balducci: Musings on André Deed. On: Anthony Balducci's Journal, November 10, 2014
2. André Deed on German Wikipedia

Silent movies - Silent Movie

My sister knows more about movies than I do, so I asked her the other day if there was a silent movie she thought I should do.
She said "Silent Movie".

Oh.
I really wouldn't have thought of that myself which is rather funny for a movie whose title is literally what I'm looking for.
Mel Brooks's parodies may not be everyone's cup of tea - I haven't seen all of them, but I definitely have my favorites (Young Frankenstein at the top) while there are others that I can live without - but silly was just what I needed now.

Here's the plot (with spoilers).

Mel Funn, who was a great director once before he took to the booze, is ready for a comeback. He and his sidekicks, Marty Eggs and Dom Bell, plan to make the first silent movie in 40 years.
When the chief of Big Picture Studios rejects the idea, Funn convinces him by saying he will get the biggest stars to sign up. This could save the studio from being taken over by the conglomerate Engulf & Devour.
Funn, Eggs, and Bell set out to recruit stars. While doing that and surprisingly succeeding, they encounter different mishaps, opportunity for a lot of slapstick including Bell's fight with a soda can launching vending machine.
To stop them from making the movie and save the studio, Engulf & Devour pay nightclub singer and dancer Vilma to seduce Funn who falls in love with her. When Eggs and Bell find out about it and tell him, he goes back to boozing with a huge bottle of liquor. Vilma, however, has refused the money because she has fallen in love with him as well, and she helps finding Funn and filling him up with coffee, so he can shoot the movie after all.
On premiere day, Engulf & Devour steal the only copy, but the friends can save it just before it can get burnt while Vilma entertains the audience. During the chase back to the theater, they defend themselves by launching soda cans at the attacking executives.
The movie is a big hit and is celebrated frenetically by the audience.

When talking about "Silent Movie", let's keep in mind that it's almost 50 years old.
Some of the jokes haven't aged well and maybe they wouldn't be included in a remake of today.

On the other hand, this is very much a Mel Brooks movie, completely with visual jokes, ba-dum-tsss jokes, potty jokes and parody of things that I may not always get, especially if they refer to the film industry of those times.
For example, I was not aware that Engulf & Devour hinted at a real-life conglomerate buying up entertainment companies at the time.

There are also some slapstick jokes that would have been funnier if they hadn't been dragged out, like the one when the three are in armor to get access to Liza Minnelli and keep falling over.
And there are scenes that bow to the old silent films and their kind of humor and are very funny, maybe more so now that I got a feeling for it.
For me, the music and sound effects were a bit much sometimes, but they worked really well in other scenes.

Of course, we can't forget the stars who are a parody of themselves in the movie, Burt Reynolds, Paul Newman, Liza Minnelli, Anne Bancroft, Marcel Marceau, and James Caan.

All in all, it was a fun and easy watch and I wasn't bored or tempted to stop in between.
You really need to like a bit of slapstick, though. If Mel Brooks movies are not your thing, this one will definitely not be.

I can't end this post without the biggest spoiler - the movie isn't completely silent.
There is a brilliant scene with world famous mime Marcel Marceau. While all the other stars agree to be in the movie, he's the one who declines the offer - with a loud "Non!" 😆


Sources:

1. Roger Ebert: Silent Movie. On: RogerEbert.com, January 1, 1976
2. Steve Pulaski: Silent Movie (1976) review. On: The Official Steve Pulaski Website, June 14, 2022
3. Fritzi Kramer: Silent Movie (1976) Review. On: Movies Silently, October 27, 2013
4. Alex Dueben: Review: Silent Movie. On: Alex Dueben, February 1, 2021