Boom In The Moony Mariner

[Joe Migliore]

Recently I've been getting acquainted with some Al Christie comedies, and discovered some things that surprised me, though they may be no surprise to this board.

The first was the Walter Hiers short WIRELESS LIZZIES (1926) which reminded me of the Walter Forde feature WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT? (1929), recently screened at Slapsticon. In the Educational short, William Irving is Hiers' rival, and sabotages his radio-controlled automobile, whereas in the Forde feature it is a tank doing more impressive damage in the final reels. They are similar enough to make me wonder if Forde saw the short and thought he could do it better. (If that's the case, he succeeded.)

Another more startling discovery was the Billy Dooley short A MOONY MARINER (1927), which anticipates EL MODERNO BARBA AZUL by two full decades, and starts with a newspaper headline about a convict going into space. I've always liked Keaton's Mexican feature, but the short works for Dooley too, and serves to illustrate how differently two entirely different comedians can approach similar material.

Now if I could only find JACK DUFFY MEETS THE KILLER, BORIS KARLOFF.

[Richard M Roberts]

Recently I've been getting acquainted with some Al Christie comedies, and discovered some things that surprised me, though they may be no surprise to this board.

The first was the Walter Hiers short WIRELESS LIZZIES (1926) which reminded me of the Walter Forde feature WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT? (1929), recently screened at Slapsticon. In the Educational short, William Irving is Hiers' rival, and sabotages his radio-controlled automobile, whereas in the Forde feature it is a tank doing more impressive damage in the final reels. They are similar enough to make me wonder if Forde saw the short and thought he could do it better. (If that's the case, he succeeded.)

Another more startling discovery was the Billy Dooley short A MOONY MARINER (1927), which anticipates EL MODERNO BARBA AZUL by two full decades, and starts with a newspaper headline about a convict going into space. I've always liked Keaton's Mexican feature, but the short works for Dooley too, and serves to illustrate how differently two entirely different comedians can approach similar material.

Now if I could only find JACK DUFFY MEETS THE KILLER, BORIS KARLOFF.

It is interesting the remakes and re-treads you come across in film comedy. We watched several surviving reels from HORSESHOES (1927) with Monty Banks at our Movie NIght last week and realized that the whole premise of those reels (Monty and strange woman on train mistaken for newlyweds and forced to share lower berth) was completely redone in PARDON MY BERTHMARKS (1940) with Buster Keaton, including the undressing in the upper berth sequence and the bit where the woman is putting lotion on her arm, and sticking it out the curtain into the corridor where Monty/Buster thinks it is alternately beckoning and waving him away. Since Clyde Bruckman worked on HORSESHOES, it makes perfect sense that he'd lift it at Columbia.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Richard M Roberts]

Recently I've been getting acquainted with some Al Christie comedies, and discovered some things that surprised me, though they may be no surprise to this board.

The first was the Walter Hiers short WIRELESS LIZZIES (1926) which reminded me of the Walter Forde feature WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT? (1929), recently screened at Slapsticon. In the Educational short, William Irving is Hiers' rival, and sabotages his radio-controlled automobile, whereas in the Forde feature it is a tank doing more impressive damage in the final reels. They are similar enough to make me wonder if Forde saw the short and thought he could do it better. (If that's the case, he succeeded.)

You know, WIRELESS LIZZIES is really a lifting of Sennett's SUPER-HOOPER-DYNE-LIZZIES (1925), and all of the "radio-controlled" car stuff came right out of the then-current news. There was much talk of "radio-controlled" everything being the wave of the Future. In fact, in the current LOST AND FOUND: AMERICAN TREASURES FROM THE NEW ZEALAND ARCHIVE DVD, there is a Selznick Newsreel clip from the early 20's about a man who designed a radio-controlled car.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Joe Migliore]

RICHARD M ROBERTS wrote:
It is interesting the remakes and re-treads you come across in film comedy. We watched several surviving reels from HORSESHOES (1927) with Monty Banks at our Movie NIght last week and realized that the whole premise of those reels (Monty and strange woman on train mistaken for newlyweds and forced to share lower berth) was completely redone in PARDON MY BERTHMARKS (1940) with Buster Keaton, including the undressing in the upper berth sequence and the bit where the woman is putting lotion on her arm, and sticking it out the curtain into the corridor where Monty/Buster thinks it is alternately beckoning and waving him away. Since Clyde Bruckman worked on HORSESHOES, it makes perfect sense that he'd lift it at Columbia.

Wow, that whets my appetite for more Monty Banks. As I mentioned in the Slapsticon thread, I thought ATTA BOY was a real eye-opener, playing at least as well as one of the minor Lloyd features. You know a comedy is great if shortly after seeing it, you really need to see it again. He's ripe for rediscovery.

[Ed Watz]

It is interesting the remakes and re-treads you come across in film comedy. We watched several surviving reels from HORSESHOES (1927) with Monty Banks at our Movie NIght last week and realized that the whole premise of those reels (Monty and strange woman on train mistaken for newlyweds and forced to share lower berth) was completely redone in PARDON MY BERTHMARKS (1940) with Buster Keaton, including the undressing in the upper berth sequence and the bit where the woman is putting lotion on her arm, and sticking it out the curtain into the corridor where Monty/Buster thinks it is alternately beckoning and waving him away. Since Clyde Bruckman worked on HORSESHOES, it makes perfect sense that he'd lift it at Columbia.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Many thanks Richard for identifying the train berth footage from Banks' 1927 feature, HORSESHOES. I have a 100' clip from this film with the hand lotion business but I wasn't sure it was from this film. I only suspected it might've been from HORSESHOES because of the Bruckman tie-in -- now you've cinched it.