When Love Took Wings (USA,1915)

This film is ahead of its time with regard to showing airplane scenes. Nevertheless, it was not new in Keystone studios, which had been making films with airplanes since its very first year, being “A Dash Through the Clouds” (USA, 1912) a fine example of a early Keystone film with very this same sort of plot. 

This is a typical Keystone film of 1910s, with a plenty of broad gestures and physical humor, including the traditional kick on the butt gag. 

In a unspecified rural area, a girl (played by actress Ollie Carlyle, who was somehow physically similar to Mabel Normand, then a star of Keystone studios), had a very jealous father and three suitors. Those characters lived in a rural area and all suitors tried to get the girl’s love. The suitors are in conflict among themselves and with the girl’s father, but nothing prevented the suitors from keep on coming. Not even the risk of being beaten by her father keep those men away from the girl. 

The girl is taken out of home, against her will, by one of her suitors. Her father calls the police. Another suitor finds them and a fight starts. 

Then, ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle and the girl see an airplane and they fly away. Yes, they were minding their own business and suddenly found a empty airplane. A chase happens, with cars and even a bicycle trying to reach the airplane. Despite all mess, both Fatty and the girl landed without a scratch. And they both tried to get married, but something unexpected prevents the marriage from happening. 

At the end, the suitors end up giving up the girl, although one of them unwillingly remain. Actually, he was forced by her father to marry her, as the other two suitors had already run away. 

This film, no matter how exaggerated it is, gets to show the influence of some recently invented technological items in daily lives of people, like the telephone, car, airplane, etc. The chases involving different means of transportation were relatively common in comedies of this studio and were often very funny, also giving a modern touch to those films in the eyes of audiences of the era. 

Mabel's Dramatic Career (USA,1913)

Mack Sennett’s character is in love with his mother’s kitchen maid, played by Mabel Normand. However, his mother is not happy about the involvement of her son with the maid. Meanwhile, it arrives another woman from the city and Mack’s mother is fond of her since the beginning. Both the mother and Mack start talking to the woman while Mabel was in the kitchen. Then, Mabel shows up in the living room, rather jealous of seeing her sweetheart getting close to the city woman. After a fight, Mabel ends up being dismissed and is left alone “into the cruel world”, as one of intertitles says.

Mack starts treating Mabel in a mean way, even taking from her the ring he had given her in the beginning of film. 

And, he soon offers “his hand and fortune” to the city woman. She refused and both the city woman and Mack start fighting in the traditional slapstick fashion. Right after the incident, Mack regrets the rude way he treated Mabel. 

Mabel arrives at the city, jobless, and ends up finding a job at a cinema studio. Years later, Mack sees Mabel’s picture in a placard as starring in a comedy of Keystone studios (the same studio that made this film in real life) and gets shocked. Mack enters the cinema, sees Mabel in the film and starts yelling, which annoys the rest of the audience. 

At the end, Mack shoots at the screen villain who was attacking Mabel, causing a huge mess inside the cinema. But the final shock for Mack was finding out that the film's villain was actually Mabel's husband in real life. 

This film is a valuable historical witness of how a cinema was like in the 1910s and of universal appeal of early Keystone comedies. Those films focused on showing lives of working class people aimed at working class audiences, so gags were quite easy to understand and performed by a fixed group of competent stars. In addition to his Keystone studios, another historic contribution of Mack Sennett was having focused on his responsibilities as a study mogul and director, as his acting was too over the top and often more ridiculous than funny. We can also see a young Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle as one of audiences members. Arbuckle was still at the beginning of his film career, but would soon become a star on his own right. 

Feet of Mud (USA,1924)

The character that would bring Harry Langdon world fame was already fully well-rounded in this film. There was a football game (American football, to be more precise) between the Mohicans and the home team. Then we are introduced to Harry Langdon’s character, naive, not understood by others and helpless on circumstances around him. Langdon is in love with a girl who has another suitor and was a substitute in the football team, merely because there were not better players available. 

Football is always a very physical sport, but that specific game seemed to be particularly violent and players left the field in a very bad condition, looking more dead than alive. Comedy films about physically weak guys who overcame difficulties were common and were made even by the most famous comedians of silent era, like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd. So, this is Langdon’s version to a rather known comedic plot. 

Langdon is called to play and the audience does not take him seriously, specially because he was not a strong, muscular man. However, against all odds, Langdon got to stand out in the game. 

Then, he tries to marry his sweetheart, but her father did not give his permission, unless Langdon got to keep a job with the City Engineer. The girl’s father wanted Langdon to be as skilled in his professional life as he was in the football field. The “engineering” job ended up being street cleaner in a rather crowded and busy city, full of garbage. Langdon tries to do his best in the new job, but he cannot help being involved in many troubled situations. 

Langdon catches the train and finds himself in the Chinese area, where a kind of inner war was going on. His sweetheart shows up there with her father and a group of tourists. Violence suddenly escalates, the girl is in danger and it’s Langdon who saves her despite all his initial fear. 

The Chinatown was portrayed in a rather stereotyped way, as a place of poverty, violence and a kind of exotic curiosity to be seen by white tourists. Those jokes can be considered ethnically insensitive. 

Flapper Fever (USA,1924)

Like most situational comedies, this one also talks about equality of genders and marriage. 

At the Rosebud Theater, located in the town of Bird Center, there will be a presentation by the Rawsbury Sisters and the local men are very excited about it in advance. We can see by the placard that the girls would not wear lots of clothes in their act and their legs were bare. How outrageous! The actresses clearly represented the 1920s young liberated women, the so-called flappers. 

By the way, in one of intertitles it is mentioned that the guys were not exactly Valentinos, in a clear reference to Italian actor Rudolph Valentino, then at the height of his popularity in America, as a symbol of beauty and desired by many women. Another mention to Valentino is made in “The Sheiks of Bird Center”, which was a reference to his most famous film. 

The guys were very excited about the show in the opinion of their wives, who are not happy with their husbands’ behavior. The wives are defined as “watch dogs”, which signals their morally strict posture, related to Victorian values and they are also older than the actresses. We can see here another traditional prompt in 1920s comedies: Henpecked husbands. So, the wives bring them to the purity league, probably to avoid them to misbehave during the Rawsbury Sisters act.

However, the husbands would not miss the opportunity to meet the girls in person and they went to the hotel where the actresses stayed to greet them. Unfortunately to those men, their wives caught them red-handed having fun and dancing with the actresses at the hotel. But the guys would not give up the actress so easily. So, the wives tried to censor the Rawsbury Sisters’ act by inspecting their costumes and act before they appear at the theater, as one of intertitles says. And the opposition of Victorian X modern 1920s moral standards gets even more noticeable in this part of the film. Such clash would remain unsolved and not even the misunderstanding in the end of the film could sweeten the wives. 

Know Thy Wife (USA,1918)

In this typical situational comedy, Bob is a lad away from home and he met and fell in love with Betty. In the beginning of film she asks him what his parents would think of her. He told her she should wait and see what would happen, as he had the right to pick out his own wife. That answer did not sound very promising. Perhaps it was a kind of sixth sense that made Betty wonder it?

However, his parents were looking forward to Bob return home and they had their own matrimonial plans to his son, including choosing a prospective wife to him called Lillian. Lillian really looked wealthy and socially respectable, as it was said on one of intertitles.

Bob got shocked when he knew his parents had already chosen a wife to him. Seriously, it was something quite outdated, even for 1918 standards, but comedies are not often realistic, so let’s not think about it. 

One day Bob received a letter from his parents, saying that they would love him to bring his roommate home, so he could be the best man of his wedding. And this is how Bob brought Betty home, disguised as his old friend, Steve. 

Then, Bob’s parents made him take Lillian to the theater, while Bob’s father took Steve (who was actually Betty in drag) –against his will –to see the bright lights. What could possibly go wrong? Some women flirted with poor Steve. On the other hand, Lillian tried to get closer to Bob. Then, Bob and Lillian coincidently show up after the theater in the same restaurant his father and Steve were and all of them start sharing the same table. 

After a while, it was impossible to hold that lie any longer and Bob ended up confessing to his parents he had married Betty. Fortunately, his parents ended up reacting very well to the sudden news and Betty got along very well with her in laws. 

Although the plot ended up being too compressed in such short film and the gags could be exploited for a longer time, the film is rather light. The gags were by non means innovative, but it is a cute romantic comedy, with a sophisticated touch and beautiful scenery and clothing. 

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.