Mabel's Blunder (USA,1914)

We can see in this film a typical element of early comedies: Misunderstandings. The plot is far less frantic than usual films by Keystone studios and provides modern-day audiences with a glimpse on how a office looked like in 1910s. Harry, the boss’ son, is engaged to Mabel but his father is interested in Mabel too. 

One day, Mabel leaves the office and another woman arrives right afterwards. The boss’ son was there and hugs the woman affectionally. Mabel sees it and gets really heartbroken. Mabel returns to the office to try to find out what was going on and sees what she thought was a kiss.

Mabel’s brother also arrives at the office and she exchange clothes with her brother, as part of her scheme and she drives her suitor and the woman to a party. Meanwhile, the boss arrives at the office while Mabel’s brother was still there. The boss mistakes him for Mabel and they both drive out of the office. While the boss and Mabel’s brother are in the car, the boss tries to get closer to Mabel and right afterwards it is shown that they both are in the same party where Mabel, the boss’ son and the other woman are.

The boss’ son and the other woman have an argument due to jealousy, she goes to the backyard and ends up meeting Mabel. The boss’ son arrives and gets very angry when he saw what he thought was Mabel’s brother taking liberties with the woman and they start fighting (the boss’ son and Mabel’s brother, who was actually Mabel in disguise). But he eventually found out he was actually fighting with Mabel. 

Finally, a general fighting takes place at the party, involving everyone else and the films ends with the boss’ son introducing the other woman to Mabel, saying she is his sister. Mabel realizes her mistake and faints in a rather stagy way.

This film is the remarkable distinction of having been directed by Mabel Normand herself, who was then in her early 20s. Not very common to have a female director back then, even tough that paradigm was quickly changing. 

The Grab Bag Bride (USA,1917)

This comedy is somehow similar to rural comedies by Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle and Mabel Normand made for Keystone studios in 1910s (specially in 1915-1916). Actor Al St John (who was Arbuckle’s nephew in real life) was good to play the roles of naive country men, often riding a monocycle, which was a stunt this actor was a specialist and we can see it in this film too. 

In this film Al St John is the suitor (identified in the beginning as a “ardent wooer”). Then, we are introduced to the widow’s daughter, who looks forward to have a good marriage. It is made the most of animals as prompts to gags and the result is pretty interesting as a reminiscence of an era when many people actually lived in the countryside and could easily relate to those characters. 

The widow planned to spoil the marriage due to social status of the love interest of her daughter. Some scenes are quite funny due to their spoofing of romantic conventions on courtship, which is something that was explored at its most at the film Tillie’s Punctured Romance (USA,1914), also made by the Keystone studios. Another funny and original fact is the intertitles, which had rhymed lines, like poetry, but the content was another spoof of the Victorian idea of romantic love. 

St John is the villain also interested in the girl, with the approval of her mother. The opposition between both suitors starts. The girl decides to marry the suitor she loved, but St John had another plans and hired two other villains to help him stop the marriage. Almost immediately, the three villains kidnap the girl, by putting her inside of a bag. The groom realized something was wrong, a chase was started. 

When it seemed that he villain would really get to marry the girl, it was shown that he had actually kidnapped her mother instead. Meanwhile, the girl was at home all dressed up to be married. When she realized there was no one around she sensed something was wrong and ran away.

At the end, the girl was able to find everybody and could finally marry the man she loved. About Al St John, he got to be married to: With the girl’s mother. He didn’t realize he had kidnapped the wrong person on time to prevent his marriage from taking place. 

Hoboken to Hollywood (USA,1926)

Billy Bevan plays the character of a typical office man, both formal and stressed. But his routine changed when the president of the company where he worked transferred Bevan to California to start the company’s office there. Bevan got very excited about this change, probably in the hope of having a less stressful lifestyle. He called his wife to tell her to make the arrangements and then it is shown the car they will use to drive to California. Considering the amount of things they carried and how they were disposed, it seemed they were going to spend a long time in California or, at least, that they were not organized people. After a brief conversation, Bevan, his wife and mother in law started their journey.

We can also see another couple who is heading West in a journey that doesn’t seem calm at all. 

Both couples meet and everyone’s problems only seem to escalate. At this point of film the gags with cars are particularly funny and very skillfully performed, which is admirable, considering the difficulty of stunts in those scenes. Actually, comedy films involving mechanical gags were not so rare back to 1920s (this is particularly noticeable in Buster Keaton's films, among others), which indicates how machines and automobiles were already an integral part of people’s lives back then. The audience really wonders if those people will ever be able to reach their destination, considering their everlasting difficulties on the way among rough desert landscapes. The elements of landscape were explored as much as possible as prompts to the gags, including the animals and plants around.

In the end, everyone got to arrive in California, but a huge surprise would wait for Bevan and things would not be as good in California as he imagined. When he arrived at the office, Bevan realized he would have to work with a fellow who was very familiar to him. It would end up causing completely unexpected consequences to Bevan and his family.

Another highlight is the kinda ethnically insensitive jokes related to the black servant, who was always too afraid of everything and spoke incorrectly, which is not something uncommon in 1920s films by Mack Sennett Comedies. The stereotypes of California as being the land of sunshine and Hollywood as the place where dreams come true were also employed. 

Wall Street Blues (USA,1924)

Del Lord is a director who became best known for the Three Stooges films he directed in 1930s. But in 1920s he directed some of the weirdest films by Mack Sennett Comedies. Weird films in the regard of portraying mega crazy situations, even within comedy’s standards and having a cartoom-like style. This film is a good example of it, with a plot that is not really linear, although the pace is not as frantic as of slapstick comedies, for instance.

The film starts with some rather crazy and unusual gags in a bank, where Bevan works. Then we see gags with objects that seem to have a life of their own, which is a characteristic of this type of comedies. A particularly noteworthy gag is when Bevan accidentally vaccums the poodle belonging to client who has just arrived the bank and the poor little animal ends up inside the vacuum cleaner, to the dismay of the owner. But things can always get worse and it is exactly what happened when the dog suddenly disappears as if by magic. 

Some crooks try to make a dishonest scheme, a robbery occurs, which gives room to many insane gags related to heights. The bank cashier fights the robbers and then there is a rapid succession of gags, which end up in a marriage inside a ship and its crazy results.

This film is very nice and has a style that was not common not even in its era, the gags are nice, actors look confident and skilled, with good comedic timing. However, as it is a kinda unusual sort of comedy it can be confused to some people and even make others feel ill at easy, which does not really affect the good quality of its production.