The Mishaps of Musty Suffer

1916-1917 slapstick shorts

Rating: n/r

Plot: The titular vagabond suffers, mustily, in a series of shorts.

I'd never heard of Musty Suffer, the character played by former circus performer Harry Watson Jr. When my fellow silent comedy fans and I get together, I think I'm going to refer to him as "The Nose." From certain angles, Watson resembles a squat Abe Lincoln, but he's a lot funnier than I imagine Lincoln ever was. A lot of the appeal is an extremely rubbery face, a physical feature that Watson utilizes to get a lot of laughs. Not that I laughed. These nearly plot-less vignettes are amusing enough for sure, and one of the things I really appreciate about silent comedy is the lengths these creative minds would go to get a laugh. It's almost like silent funnymen (and women? Were there any?) weren't trying to out-funny but out-innovate each other. This definitely has imagination and plays around with all kinds of old-timey special effects, the kind that I've always had a sweet spot for. Slightly surrealistic and near-absurdist at times, these shorts have just the right of mean-spiritedness mixed in with the humor. Musty Suffer is, as I think the back of the dvd case suggested, a sort of comic Job character, and describing the plot points for any of these would likely trick somebody into thinking they're tragedies or a little depressing. But Musty's a clown in purgatory, and even if Watson's character isn't exactly as easy to connect with as the silent comedians everybody's heard of, he's still fun to watch. I'll be diving into these shorts again and am happy that whoever was responsible for this collection unearthed him for my fellow silent comedy fans and me. We all call him "The Nose," by the way. Not sure if I mentioned that earlier.