Works, By Title: S-X (127)

Total: 347 works

The Suburbanites

Funny slapstick spoof of suburban life, using titles dripping in irony. Doesn't feel outdated, because films on this topic haven't changed much.

The Surprises of a Flirtation (Les surprises de l'amour)

A father and two sons pursue the same dame. Even though this release date is not in Linder's early period, this is not Max, the dapper and loveable upper-class twit.

The Taking Of Luke McVane/The Fugitive

Luke McVane is some geek that moves so slow you wonder what kind of “horse” this cowboy is really on. Wearing his virginity on his sleeve, he goes starry-eyed over the town floozy when she hoochie coochies for a bar full of drunken cowboys. When Greaser Garcia takes her as private property, Luke remembers Broncho Billy And The Greaser and jumps at his chance to score nookie points. But, unlike Broncho Billy, this square flips his roscoe once too often, so the town figures the strange mad dog needs to be put down, and he ends up a lamster. Suddenly the nerd's looking less hero, more antihero - and this sleepy little flick turns out to be better than expected.

The True Jiu-Jitsu (Le Vrai Jiu-Jitsu)

The Phonoscène was an antecedent of music video and is regarded as a forerunner of sound film. It combined a sound recording with a film shot with actors lip-synching to the sound recording. The recording and film were synchronized by a mechanism ('Chronophone') patented by Léon Gaumont in 1902.

The Truth Behind the Ape-Man (La vérité sur l'homme-singe)

Notable for an early use of inter-cutting for comic effect (in a running gag), and the manic performance of the uncredited lead as ape-man (shades of Harpo). Also impressed by how efffective the wordless storytelling was. Or maybe not: almost all the online reviews I read were either baffled or off the mark. But if you're feeling the need for clues, there's a detailed breakdown at: https://centuryfilmproject.org/2016/06/13/the-truth-behind-the-ape-man-1906/

The Unexpected Guest

Though we see the unexpected guest two years after its conception was hinted at, making it at least 15 months old, it appears to be still an infant!

Too Much Beauty (Cretinetti che bello!/Troppo Bello)

When Cretinetti is invited to a wedding, he heads out in his most dapper looks - thus making him irresistable to every woman who sees him (including the bride!). A setup for yet another remake of 1904's 'Personal' - with a twist ending that reflects Deed's roots with Georges Méliès.

Traffic In Souls

A country girl, just into the big city, is misled from the train station to a 'den of iniquity' where she is held captive. Two immigrant girls, literally fresh off the boat, are promised 'good positions and salary' but instead are trapped in that same den. A naive city girl falls for a smooth operator who drugs her drink then carries her off to another den. All the work of one mob, and a high society elite who is, literally, 'the man higher up' - his office is upstairs from the mob's. This mob doesn't look tough, but they go out like gangsters - almost 20 years before "Little Caesar" and "Scarface". And although we're supposed to believe the man higher up had no connections with police, a member of the upper class rolling in cash by enslaving some of the most vulnerable members of the lower classes - in a way that's despised by general society - is nontheless an unusually provocative plot line for early American film.

Troubles Of A Grasswidower (Vive La Vie de Garçon)

Max has a wife who tires of his annoying behavior and returns to her mother. At first, Max is quite pleased to have the house all to himself. But he quickly discovers that even the most basic domestic chores can be fraught with difficulty. Introduces the Crazy Max dance