Works, By Title: S-X (179)

Total: 462 works

Tables Turned on the Gardener/The Sprayer Sprayed (L'Arroseur arrosé)

Considered the earliest known instance of film comedy, and the first use of film to portray a fictional story. Also a seminal work in the field of Internet porn, as the first work in the older-male-spanks-twink genre.

Temptations Of A Great City (Ved Faengslets Port)

Not much of a story: when a squanderer who relies on his mom to pay his clubbing debts shacks up with his creditor's daughter, mom disowns him - yet he can't change his ways. Missing the expected cheap thrills, yet the story-telling style held my attention to the end - waiting for him to harden up and boot that booty to the streets to pay her way. Or at least, in true Nordisk style, sell her to white slave traders or Mormons.

That Chink At Golden Gulch

Who could pass up a title like that? After all, over a century later ESPN was still relying on chink power to grab eyeballs with its “Chink in the Armor” headline for a Jeremy Lin story. Here, reknown Massa of ethnology D.W. Griffith spins a tale of a Noble Pagan who “though a saffron-skinned Pagan, his soul is white and real red blood pulsates his heart” the Moving Picture World synopsis tells us. The Moving Picture World review however was a bit less sentimental: “Perhaps if everyone could see such heroic self-sacrifice in a Chinaman as this one displayed, the aversion which most men feel toward them would disappear. It is doubtful, however, if such unselfishness and generosity abide in more than an occasional individual. The picture is not up to the Biograph standard...” - which already sets the bar quite low.

The '?' Motorist

Neither the law of society nor the law of gravity can obstruct this motorist's journey.

The 1002nd Ruse (Тысяча_вторая_хитрость)

This seems to want to be seen in a comic light, but every opportunity for humor is replaced by a mere suggestion of a possible humorous situation - “insert gag here” - leaving the impression of viewing an incomplete work..or a total flop.

The Aryan/La fiera domada

The title raised the excited hope of going beyond the usual stereotyping and slurs, instead delivering an explicit exposition of racial ideology - taking Birth Of A Nation out west. Unfortunately, this is just an incomplete reconstruction of a film considered lost until 2008. The introduction states that this version comes from an Argentine mid-1920s rerelease (dates within the film are given as 1923), with titles that “differ quite a bit from the original”. Most segments have not been digitally restored, and lost segments are replaced by photographs.

The original may have been more directly concerned with racial ideology, but here Cowboy's main conflict is with women: Cowboy is massively Madonna–whore complexed. This is immediately suggested in the very first scene, where Cowboy's sacred love for his distant mother is juxtaposed with images of him petting and kissing his bestial companion. Then after he deludes himself that a sleazy mining camp on the border is his ideal “town inhabited by men of iron heart”, and that his mother would love a girl he met in a bar there, he is of course vamped. But instead of dumping her, he takes her as his whore he loves to hate, as he does a No-More-Mister-Nice-Guy. Finally, he meets The Virgin Mary Jane and he again falls to his delusions as she cons him into believing his White Man's Duty is to give away his riches. He leaves behind his whore to return to his Brotherhood and replay the Heroic Defender role that first got him vamped, before riding off in the sunset to seek his next imagined Madonna to transform into an imagined whore. So goes the life of an iron-hearted Aryan.

The Delights of the Shoot

Not clear what's going on, but it appears that Cretinetti goes on a hunting trip with his lover and her husband. Then the two lovers conspire several ways to dump on hubby, so they can do the hanky panky. Fast-moving slapstick, but no laughs.

The Devil's Castle/The Haunted Castle/The House of the Devil (Le manoir du diable)

The Devil plays tricks, some (bats, shifting furniture) later used in the 1902 'The Farmer's Troubles in a Hotel'. [Star Film 78-80]

The Doctor's Bride/An Evil Thought Thwarted

Geezer Alert! Next time you old farts are out cruising for young hotties, carry along this flick to show her why a boring bourgeois baldy's better than a hot young hunk. Guaranteed to thwart her evil thoughts - and let you put yours in action. Or at least give you both a good laugh.

The Garage

Sight gags and synchonized acrobatic gags from the comedy duo of Arbuckle and Keaton - lacking the wildness and zaniness that Al St. John contributed, but still funny. Dark comedy creeps in when Keaton's character is pleased with the effect of adding toxic wood alcohol (methanol) to his drink - a not uncommon practice in those days of Prohibition when industrial alcohol was all that was available. The practice results in blindness, respiratory paralysis, or death. And in 1927, the government increased the toxicity of such industrial alcohol “to root out a bad habit”, according to a Prohibition proponent - by “legalized murder.”, as it was described by a Prohibition opponent.

The Girl And Her Trust

A dull rerun of Griffith`s earlier invasion-call-rescue thriller "The Lonedale Operator". But Lonedale`s smart tough cookie is replaced by a different type of girl: she doesn`t hesitate to accept a gift from a man who sees it as a prelude to romance, then scoffs at his plea for a date (without returning the gift), and then offers his gift to another man, who she then slaps when he presumes the gift offer is a prelude to romance. After thus establishing the character, in what is known in cinematic terms as, "a scan`lous cock-teasing bitch", the film then shows her pointlessly risking her life to save the company`s money, thus further expanding the character to be a "brain-dead bootlicker", and leaving no doubt that, with these two traits, a bright future awaits her in the corporate world.

The Glue (La Glu)

Just another romantic tale of boy meets glue.

The Round-Up

The standard legend states that Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle's comedy career effectively ended with the scandal of his arrest and trials. This film serves to set the record straight: Arbuckle's comedy career ended when he walked away from Comique, his own company where he had complete creative control (and the fat man always got the girl!), and signed up for The Big Paper offered in exchange for putting his star name and face on this torturously stupid trash. Although it doesn't even pretend to be a comedy, the few moments of Arbuckle attempting to add humor all fall flat. Yet without any cowboy star, its masquerade as a western was doomed from the start. So all we get is utterly contrived maudlin melodrama worse than the kind Arbuckle hilariously parodied in Out West (1918), and lame attempts at hick cowpoke humor.

But also starring Wallace Beery as The Greaser, in a portrayal so menacing it threatens to leap off the screen (perhaps fueled by his own lust for the Big Paper given to a lesser actor?). Yet the film, in its relentless striving for rock-bottom, even found a way to undo Beery's good work.

Sure, this flick pulled in The Big Paper way back in the day, but now it looks terribly dated - even when compared to contemporary and older movies - while Comique still shines bright.

The Rounders

Chappy Charbuckle again, this time in cahoots instead of in conflict. Essentially just a showcase for Chaplin's drunk act, it can be viewed as a spinoff from Mabel's Strange Predicament where the drunk act, though just a sideshow to the main story of Mabel's predicament, got the biggest laughs. But the side show drunk act was more extended (and much funnier) than here, where it is the main attraction: yet another case of spinoff failure.

The Ruse

When Hart's character rides up he's introduced as “reformed gunfighter” so we can relax: this ain't yet another one of Hart's No-More-Mister-Bad-Guy yarns. In its place, zoophilic fantasizers are treated to a stunningly explicit shot of big horse booty, center screen. Then, in a scene reminiscent of Broncho Billy And The Greaser (1914), he immediately gets in a rumble - even before he's flirted with the Big Butt that hangs out at the post offices of the cinematic Old West. All this has nothing to do with the story. Maybe it's just to let you know that the reformed gunfighter still can duke it out. But after the first four minutes of testosterone flow, he gets suited up and goes pussyfooting around Chicago, so you'll have to wait another 15 minutes before he gets a-rootin' and a-tootin'. But he's no Yosemite Sam: doesn't say a word until the last minute of the film!

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 saloon full of drunken cowboys. When 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.

Note:
  • The Miracle Cure: Although the wounded sheriff initially had to be carefully helped into the saddle, when Apaches are spotted just a short while later he needs no help mounting the rear of a running horse!
  • An Equal Opportunity Employer: This work is marked as one featuring an “ethnic stereotype” because of the opening standoff with unruly knife-toting Garcia. But it must be noted that closer inspection of the background in later scenes shows an unusual twist for a film of that era: cowboys in similar Mexican garb join the Deputy's posses for lynching Luke McVane and for exterminating Native Americans.

The Taming Of The Shrew

Brief rendition of the Shakespeare play, that's unlikely to make much sense to viewers not already familiar with the story. The shrew's initial rampage is hot fun but, as in real life, after the wedding it's all downhill.

The Torn Trousers/In A Difficult Position (Mon Pantalon Est Décousu)

Max uses finesse to try to hide a rip in his trousers during a dance. This is quintessential Max: the dapper and loveable upper-class twit whose efforts to impress ladies crash and burn while he tries to keep face, in the modern man's dilemma of maintaining the delusion of stability as his world falls apart.

The Train Wreckers

After servicing her final two corporate customers, the engineer and the switchman, Rail Tramp Trixie finishes the shift on her day job and heads to the woods to unwind with her own kind. But seems The Boys had gotten tired of waiting and started without her, because she spotted them all in a circle - doing what The Boys do in a circle. So she just stood back and watched: she liked to watch. When The Boys were done with their fun, they surprised Trixie with her favorite fun - a little B&D...doggy style. Reenergized, she headed down to the tracks for her freelance gig, hawking her wares by waving her flag from down below, a signal that was well-known all along the train line. When a trainload of randy squares heading to a convention eyed her flag, they brought the train screeching to a halt - and Trixie scored big-time. “All aboard!”

All around those parts, wives all agreed: of all the loose ladies, nobody could wreck a train trip like Rail Tramp Trixie.

The Tramp

Seemingly endless loop of the same type of slapstick that was done with much more enthusiasm in Chaplin's earlier Keystone reels with Mabel Normand.

The Tramp And The Dog

One tramp, one dog, one minute: decide for yourself the cinematic possibilities...

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 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.

The Watermelon Patch

As usual with Edison, the length far exceeds the interest. But don't chuck this one: skip the long boring chase and fast-forward to the uncredited cake-walking babies strutting their stuff and rocking the house.

The White Caps

The two men renown as pioneers of early US cinema, Edwin S. Porter and D.W. Griffith, shared another claim to fame/infamy: each created a work inspired by Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 The Clansman. Griffith's 1915 film The Birth of a Nation was adapted from the stage version of the novel. Edwin S. Porter was inspired by the novel to create this film. According to Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company, Edison advertisements held a pro-vigilante view, proclaiming: A lawless and criminal element almost invariably accompanied the advance guard of civilization and to keep this element in check the law abiding citizens were compelled to secretly organize themselves for their own protection...We have portrayed in Motion Pictures, in a most vivid and realistic manner, the method employed by the “White Caps” to rid the community of undesirable citizens.

While the White Caps role here as Morality Police may seem relatively benign compared to the lynch justice in The Birth of a Nation, the book also points out: This film narrative exactly parallels an earlier account of “White Cap” activity in a turn-of-the-century newspaper. In the newspaper account, the tar clogged up the man's pores and he eventually died.