Fatty's Reckless Fling (USA,1915)

During his first years with Keystone studios, Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle often played the roles of helpless men, who could not control themselves and acted like grown up children. His comedic style also lacked the sophistication it would acquire later in 1910s upon his pairing with Buster Keaton. So, Arbuckle’s films during his stay at the studio employed lots of physical gags, knockabout slapstick around ordinary plots. However, he proved to be very popular among audiences since the beginning of his career on early 1910s until a scandal pematurely ended it in 1921. 

Henpecked husbands were a common theme in silent comedies and had their heyday in situational comedies of 1920s, although they have been around in previous decades. Arbuckle himself often played this sort of role. Another common element were misunderstandings, usually around socially inadequate behaviors and etiquette. 

This film have all aforementioned elements, plus actors with broad, exaggerated gestures. Arbuckle is a henpecked husband by a wife who is domineering, to the point of being rude. Apparently, whenever his wife left him alone he found himself in trouble and, after being caught in a poker game, Arbuckle was locked at home by his wife while she was away.  

Arbuckle found a way to leave his apartment. Meanwhile, another neighbor left his house and said good bye to his wife. Unfortunately, the poker players were interrupted by the police and a fight ensued, which gave room to some really silly gags, including typical shots of smoke on actor’s buttocks and messy scenery. 

As Arbuckle did not manage to return to his apartment, he found shelter in the neighbor’s house and it made people think he was romantically involved with the wife of his neighbor. This conflict provided the funniest gags of the film, specially one with a bed coming and going between both apartments. 

Although this film is not very funny, its plot is easy to follow and it provides a precious historical witness of typical slapstick comedies of 1910s and it has a plenty of action for a film of one reel (around 11 minutes). 

Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies (USA,1925)

Although many people associate Mack Sennett with 1910s slapstick comedies with frantic pace, damsels in distress, awkward cops, custard pies, villains with bizarre fake mustaches, etc. his studio always managed to adjust well to changing tastes of audiences, different comedic styles and even new technologies. 

In the 1920s, Mack Sennett studios (which was also known as Keystone studios in the first years of its foundation back to the previous decade) made situational comedies (with slower pace, less focus on physical gags and more realistic situations than the so-called slapstick comedies). 

Sennett also made very original comedies back to 1920s, specially with actors like Ben Turpin, Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde, etc. with a mix of slow and fast paces, witty intertitles, frequent explosions, cartoon-like special effects, objects that sometimes seemed to have a life of their own and nearly bizarre subject matters. A plenty of those films were directed by del Lord, who would later become known for his work with The Three Stooges. This film has all aforementioned characteristics. 

Burbank Watts is a inventor who tried “to get power for autos from the hot air wasted on radio speeches”. Do not worry if it does not make sense to you. This statement is not supposed to make much sense anyway. Just keep in mind that this new technology meant that cars would work without gasoline. Actually, the technology worked a bit too well, as cars started to move all by themselves, sometimes even without drivers in. 

Other characters of the film, among others, are Hiram Case, who was his helper, and did not seem to be very skilled. Winnie Watts was the inventor’s daughter.

It is also noteworthy that this new technology upset the oil merchant of the town and, to make things worse, he was also interested in the inventor’s daughter. The oil merchant tried to prevent this new technology from taking off, but the inventor’s assistant did not allow any sabotage to occur. As a bonus, the love of the inventor’s daughter went to his assistant and the oil merchant ended up being arrested

A particularly funny gag in this film with a car out of gas really reminded of ones made by Hal Roach studios to films of Snub Pollard (It’s a Gift, USA/1923) and Laurel & Hardy (Two Tars, USA/1928). This cute, weird comedy has its moments of fun, lots of creativity and it is still funny and amusing, even to nowadays’ audiences.