Tuesday, October 18, 2011

The Baron - 1911


Country: USA
Language: English
Release Date: 31 August 1911 (USA)
Filming Locations: Fort Lee, New Jersey, USA
Production Co: Biograph Company
Genres: Comedy | Short
Director: Mack Sennett
Writer: Edwin August
Stars: Dell Henderson, Mabel Normand and Joseph Graybill
If you want to understand how you joke with yourself (which is the centerpiece of being) you need to understand how film comedy works. And for that you have to experience the inventors: Chaplin, Keaton, Arbuckle. And deeper yet, the inventor of the inventors, Sennett. He is that ghost behind the babbling ghosts in your soul.
This is one of Sennett's apprentice films from the period where he was directing... one every week. They aren't remembered fondly. This is the first I've seen from this period as they are hard to find, and he didn't write it.
Nonetheless, there are several comic twists in this seven minute story, twisted cleanly. No sign yet of the frantic.

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