1916 comedy
Rating: 13/20
Plot: An artist, following a stream of terrible luck, decides to take his own life. He can't quite do it on his own and hires a hitman named Automatic Joe to do the deed. But what will happen when he changes his mind?
That might be the worst movie cover art I've ever put on my blog.
It's been a lot of Douglas Fairbanks for these Silent Saturdays. He's sort of the opposite of Buster Keaton in a way. Or at least the opposite of a stone-face. Instead, he usually performs with this boyish glee. Most of this movie finds his character in a melancholy state though. Now don't get me wrong--I enjoy watching Douglas Fairbanks bounce around the screen. He's a charismatic bundle of energy. He's not always a great actor, however, and it's hard to buy the character he's portraying here. Part of the problem is that this film leans heavily on lengthy intertitles. That hurts Fairbanks as an actor because it's a lot more telling than showing. It's almost as if Fairbanks couldn't handle the emotions on his own and needed words to help the audience explain them.
I enjoyed George Beranger more as Automatic Joe. He spends most of his screen time, it seems, striking poses for the audience.
The second half of the movie is probably more entertaining than the first. You could watch the first half of this and not even realize it's a comedy. It's just one unfortunate thing after another happening to the poor protagonist until he reaches a breaking point. The second half has a few chase scenes but mostly is about characters wearing fake beards.
In a way, the story reminded me a little of The End, that Burt Reynolds/Dom Deluise black comedy. No, there wasn't anybody in this who had the raw sexuality of Dom Deluise, but the suicidal-guy-changing-his-mind storyline was similar.
I had a little time, so I watched "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish," also from 1916. This was a surprising delight, and it was very strange. It's a story by Tod Browning and is sort of like a psychedelic Sherlock Holmes. Fairbanks plays a "scientific detective" who happens to be addicted to cocaine. As you might expect from a 1916 comedy, the drug use is accompanied by a slide whistle. Cocaine actually seems to have an effect on Fairbanks' character similar to Popeye and his spinach. His name is actually Coke Ennyday, by the way. He drives a checkered car with a guy sitting upright in the back playing a horn. He also has all these weird tools, the kinds of things I guess a "scientific detective" might have, like a periscope, weird doors, and a top-hat telescope. It's creative, weird fun, only slightly ruined by a dopey, meta ending.
Bessie Love plays Inane, described as "the little fish blower." I think that's supposed to be dirty.
Recommended if you enjoy cocaine.
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