Author Archive: Retro

Madeline Hurlock is tired of her husband (Ben Turpin) ignoring her to go hunting so she runs off with one of his friends.

When a bottle of hair tonic renders him bald, Jimmie is mistaken for a famous French beautician and is called upon to demonstrate his skills.

A disfigured young woman with two beautiful sisters is courted by a blind man. Will he still love her when his sight is restored?

Bess True’s father wants her to marry a real man, but Bess prefers Bobby Ray, who must fight boxer Glen Cavender in this standard but funny short comedy.It’s a common enough type of story for short comedy in this era, but Ray, who had become a screen comic in 1915 as “Alkilai Ike, Jr.” and who would later become a second unit director, is more than up to the challenge. While fans of silent comedy will recognize a lot of gags and locales that many other comedies used (I must have seen a hundred comedies in which some one gets tossed over that cliff by the ocean), Bobby Ray’s mild but game character and Cavender’s tough handle the gags very well. In addition, fans will be pleased to see Pete the Pup in an early role.

This picture is intended to portray the evil of the gangster in New York. The first scene shows New York’s other side. The poor musician is engaged to be married to a young woman and leaves for another city to accept an engagement whereby to improve his condition monetarily.While he is away the little one is forced to work at sewing to support her invalid mother and herself. Later on, in going to deliver some of her work, she meets “Snapper Kid” who is the chief of one faction of the gangsters of Pig Alley in the slum quarters. There are two factions of these gangsters. Like the musketeers of old, they go about, each side alert that they will not be taken unawares by the other. About this time the little girl’s mother dies and she finds herself alone, but the musician returns with replenished purse to become the protector of the little orphan. [...]