Fatty Joins the Force is a 1913 American short comedy film featuring Fatty Arbuckle. It features the Keystone Kops in a background role. Plot: Fatty is an obese and timid man who rescues a little girl from drowning. The girl turns out to be the daughter of the Police Commissioner. The grateful Commissioner offers Fatty a job on the Police… Read more →
Why Worry? is a 1923 American silent comedy film directed by Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor and starring Harold Lloyd. Plot: Harold Van Pelham (Harold Lloyd) is a young, wealthy American businessman who obsesses constantly about his health, believing he is deathly sick while in reality he is perfectly fine. Determined to improve his physical condition with an extended rest… Read more →
Sherlock Jr. is a 1924 American silent comedy film directed by and starring Buster Keaton and written by Clyde Bruckman, Jean Havez and Joseph A. Mitchell. It features Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton and Ward Crane. In 1991, Sherlock Jr. was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or… Read more →
Topper Returns is a 1941 film directed by Roy Del Ruth. It is the third and final entry in the initial series of supernatural comedy films inspired by the novels of Thorne Smith. It followed Topper (1937) and Topper Takes a Trip (1938). As in the prior films, Roland Young plays Cosmo Topper, a mousy banker who gets into trouble… Read more →
A Sailor-Made Man is a 1921 American silent comedy film directed by Fred Newmeyer and starring Harold Lloyd. Considered to be Lloyd’s first feature-length film, the extended running time of A Sailor-Made Man came about purely by accident. During production, with an excessive number of gags written into the story, it became apparent that the film would be longer than… Read more →
The Old Swimmin’ Hole is a 1921 American silent comedy film directed by Joe De Grasse based on the poem The Old Swimmin’ Hole by James Whitcomb Riley. A reviewer for Exhibitors Herald summarized, “The theme of the picture is a light one—just the pleasant little love story of a country schoolboy and girl in the era of the youth… Read more →
My Boy is a 1921 American silent comedy-drama film directed by Victor Heerman and Albert Austin, and starring child actor Jackie Coogan. Plot: Little Jackie Blair (Coogan) arrives in New York City from France without a friend in the world, his mother having died in steerage during the voyage. He slips by the immigration officers at Ellis Island by blending… Read more →
Out West is a 1918 American two-reel silent comedy film, a satire on contemporary Westerns, starring Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle, Buster Keaton, and Al St. John. It was the first of Arbuckle’s “Comique” films to be filmed on the West Coast, the previous five having been filmed in and around New York City. The idea for the story came from Natalie… Read more →
The Cure is a 1917 short comedy film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. The plot revolves around alcohol, being made just prior to prohibition but during a period where the politicians were debating the evils of alcohol. Plot: Chaplin plays a drunkard who is attending a hydropathic hotel, presumably to dry out, but brings along a big suitcase full… Read more →
The Love Expert is a surviving 1920 American silent comedy romance film directed by David Kirkland and produced by and starring Constance Talmadge. It was an early distribution release by the First National Exhibitor’s Company. Plot: Babs (Constance Talmadge) is sent home from boarding school because she persists in carrying out her fanciful love researches instead of studying her lessons…. Read more →
