Language: Silent, French titles (10)

Featured image for Le Costume Blanc

Le Costume Blanc

André Deed was one of film's first comedy stars yet, unfortunately, films like this might leave modern viewers wondering why. Deed's face is seldom visble, and the camera frequently lingers after he is out of frame.

Featured image for Max In Search Of A Sweetheart (Max Cherche une Fiancee)

Max In Search Of A Sweetheart (Max Cherche une Fiancee)

Max gets into trouble when he sends two girls the same poem. This idea is revisited in a wacky way in the 1917 "Max The Heartbreaker".

Featured image for How Greediness Spoilt Foolshead's Christmas (Come fu che l'ingordigia rovinò il Natale a Cretinetti)

How Greediness Spoilt Foolshead's Christmas (Come fu che l'ingordigia rovinò il Natale a Cretinetti)

Capturing the true spirit of the celebration - greed - Cretinetti destroys Christmas, taking out Santa, angels, and saints in a Méliès-style fantasy of riotous excess.

Featured image for Entente cordiale (L'entente cordiale)

Entente cordiale (L'entente cordiale)

Max and his good friend, who came to visit him in Paris, both fall in love with his new maid.

Featured image for The Water-Funker (La peur de l'eau)

The Water-Funker (La peur de l'eau)

Max's romance is derailed by a challenge to his fear of water. Only two comic moments: this first one at 9 minutes. The final comic moment (at 13 minutes) is Max in his best manic form. It's even more impressive because it is preceded by a chillingly grim portrayal of broken-hearted depression: like a cinematic display of manic-depression.

Featured image for The Compleat Sportsman (Max Linder pratique tous les sports)

The Compleat Sportsman (Max Linder pratique tous les sports)

To wed a rich American, Max must beat competing suitors in sports.

Starts out looking like a gender switch of the 1904 How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the New York Herald Personal Columns. Like that earlier film, this also is long, with few laughs. Basically, it is an excuse for Linder to show off his skills - he looks like he could have been an early Douglas Fairbanks.

Interesting that one of the suitors appears to be a dark-skinned non-European (who moves like a real boxer), since such a marriage was illegal in 30 of the 48 US states at that time. Perhaps that is why the film's IMDB entry gives no indication of a US release. But, according to Wikipedia, there was never any racial law about marriage in France, and all administrative prohibitions were canceled by a law in 1833.