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Spotlights

Voidsville Follies

Works featuring "strongman" (12)

Sandow

Language: Silent, released in Mar. 1894
Minutes: 1

Circus showman Sandow, credited with coining the term “body-building”, yawns while checking on his butt and underarm BO.

Featured elements:

: actuality and documentary; sports; strongman

The Lady Doctor (La doctoresse)

Georges Monca (director)
Paul Ferrier (writer)
Charles Prince (lead)
Mistinguett (lead)
Pâquerette (lead)
Pathé (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in 1911, month unknown
Minutes: 7

After his numerous amorous attempts during office hours are rebuffed by the lady doctor, her husband 'seeks amusement elsewhere' - leading to the inevitable submission of the wife, the end of her professional career, and better business for other doctors.

Featured elements:

: abuse; comedy; farce; neglected spouse; patriarchy; social commentary; strongman

Quo Vadis? [1913]

Enrico Guazzoni (director/writer)
Eugenio Bava (cinematographer)
Alessandro Bona (cinematographer)
Henryk Sienkiewicz (author)
Gustavo Serena (lead)
Amleto Novelli (lead)
Società Italiana Cines (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, Russian subtitles, released in Mar 1913
Minutes: 103

Maybe Rome wasn't built in a day, but it only took one night to burn it down (with the help of a few good men with torches), according to this elaborate tale of palace intrigue, divine intervention, and jungle fever in Nero's Rome.

Featured elements:

: corruption; death scene; execution; falsely accused; female bonding; forbidden love; heroic defender; historical drama; male bonding; manipulator; melodrama; patriarchy; persecution; prison; redemption; religion; rescue; revenge; Roman empire; romance; servitude; strongman; suicide; torture; treachery; unrequited love

Cabiria

Giovanni Pastrone (director/writer)
Eugenio Bava (cinematographer)
Natale Chiusano (cinematographer)
Segundo de Chomón (cinematographer)
Giovanni Tomatis (cinematographer)
Gabriele D'Annunzio (writer)
Emilio Salgari (author)
Gustave Flaubert (author)
Titus Livius (author)
Umberto Mozzato (lead)
Bartolomeo Pagano (lead)
Lidia Quaranta (lead)
Italia Almirante-Manzini (lead)
Itala (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, French subtitles, released in Apr 1914
Minutes: 124

With awe-inspiring visuals, a compelling story, and the screen debuts of Maciste and Moloch, this gets even better with multiple viewings.

Featured elements:

: action; adventure; armed conflict; chase; death scene; fighting; historical drama; melodrama; religion; rescue; Roman empire; servitude; strongman; suicide; torture

Leading Lizzie Astray

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Ed Brady (lead)
Edgar Kennedy (lead)
Mack Swain (lead)
Slim Summerville (lead)
Phyllis Allen (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Keystone 5-step Porch (location)
Keystone (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, Russian subtitles, released in Nov 1914
Minutes: 12

When Fats is dumped by his dame, everybody must pay by the pounding.

Featured elements:

: comedy; dance; fighting; forsaken; heroic defender; homme fatale; infidelity; rescue; roughhouse; slapstick; strongman; urbanization

Fatty's Faithful Fido

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Minta Durfee (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Charles Lakin (lead)
Luke the Dog (lead)
Keystone (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Mar 1915
Minutes: 14

Highlights:

Cool “skin-the-cat” on gymnastic rings
Al St. John's acrobatics
Comic climax on gymnastic rings

Featured elements:

: animal act; chase; comedy; dance; ethnic stereotype; fighting; identity mix-up; roughhouse; slapstick; sports; strongman

Maciste/Marvelous Maciste

Luigi Romano Borgnetto (director)
Vincenzo Denizot (director)
Agnes L. Bain (writer)
Giovanni Pastrone (writer)
Bartolomeo Pagano (lead)
Leone Papa (lead)
Amelia Chellini (lead)
Itala (production)

Language: Silent, Dutch titles, English subtitles, released in Aug 1915
Minutes: 64

Maciste smoothly steps out of his loincloth and dark skin into spats and double-breasted suit to hit the streets of 20th century Turin, where he is lured by a girl with a sob story straight out of your spam mail folder. A truly straight-up righteous dude, he bails on the dame, kicking a stray dog on the way. Things get worse for the hound when the studio nixed plans for his own spinoff series. Who needs a dog when you've got Maciste?

Featured elements:

: action; automobile; backstage; comedy; crime; fighting; heroic defender; metatheatre; rescue; strongman

Fatty and Mabel Adrift

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Mabel Normand (lead)
Al St. John (lead)
Frank Hayes (lead)
Glen Cavender (lead)
Joe Bordeaux (lead)
Luke the Dog (lead)
Keystone (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Jan 1916
Minutes: 34

This bloated one's for audiences that never tire of watching two hard-boiled city slickers play country bumpkin lovers, as in Those Country Kids and Fatty and Mabel's Simple Life. For the rest of us, there's always Al St. John, whose mugging, crying, violent pettiness, and rubbernecking when being strangled always gets a laugh from me.

Featured elements:

: abuse; animal act; bookends; comedy; crazy cops; distress call; fighting; gambling; heroic defender; metatheatre; revenge; romance; slapstick; strongman; swindling

Easy Street

Charles Chaplin (director/lead/writer)
William C. Foster (cinematographer)
Roland Totheroh (cinematographer)
Vincent Bryan (writer)
Maverick Terrell (writer)
Eric Campbell (lead)
Edna Purviance (lead)
Lloyd Bacon (lead)
Albert Austin (lead)
Charlotte Mineau (lead)
Leo White (lead)
James T. Kelley (lead)
John Rand (lead)
Mutual (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Jan 1917
Minutes: 23

With so many hilarious gags (and some are just small movements), that come at you so rapidly, repeat viewings is a must.

Featured elements:

: addiction; baptism of fire; bookends; chase; comedy; crazy cops; dark comedy; drunken warrior; family; fighting; heroic defender; poverty; redemption; religion; slapstick; smack attack; strongman; tramp; zero to hero

The Wicked Darling

Tod Browning (director)
Harvey Gates (writer)
Waldemar Young (writer)
Evelyn Campbell (author)
Priscilla Dean (lead)
Lon Chaney (lead)
Wellington A. Playter (lead)
Spottiswoode Aitken (lead)
Kalla Pasha (lead)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Feb 1919
Minutes: 59

Talent of Priscilla Dean wasted in this cornball Bad-Girl-Gone-Good tale of 1-dimensional characters more suited to early Griffith fluff.

Featured elements:

: abuse; fighting; flashback; heroic defender; melodrama; prejudice; redemption; romance; strongman; treachery

Back Stage

Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle (director/lead)
Elgin Lessley (cinematographer)
Jean Havez (writer)
Al St. John (lead)
Buster Keaton (lead)
Molly Malone (lead)
Jack Coogan Sr. (lead)
Comique (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Sep 1919
Minutes: 21

The Rough Boys seem a bit more tame here: sight gags replace roughhouse, chivalry replaces rivalry. Highlights:

Al St. John's greatly diminished role leaves Buster and Roscoe looking more like a proto Stan and Ollie. A particularly striking resemblance is seen when Roscoe looks to the audience during Buster's antics.
Also features a prototype of one of Buster's most famous stunts: comic standing in place as a falling house facade encircles, instead of crushing, the comic. Here we see Roscoe perform the stunt instead of Buster (although it is a closeup/long shot/closeup edited sequence, so it's difficult to be certain who actually performs it).
In a striking divergence from the norm of silent comedy, a gunshot victim doesn't respond comically.