Author Archive: Retro

Marcel Perez was born in 1885 in Madrid, Spain as Marcel Fernández Peréz.

Director Larry Semon and a young Stan Laurel costar as prisoners loafing on the chain gang. As both comrades and rivals, their paired movements result in strikingly choreographed slapstick. A climactic chase through the streets of 1918 Los Angeles is packed with the kind of spectacular stunts that made Semon one of the biggest names in silent comedy at the time.

In order to get his daughter away from her suitors, father decides to spirit her away to Bermuda. Our hero, however, stows away on the ship. When discovered, he is credited with catching a crook, thus winning a reward . . . and the girl.

A pleasant little film from crosseyed Ben Turpin. The tape I have with this movie on it contains several other Turpin movies, and from watching them, I believe the reason he didn’t achieve the fame of the great silent comics was because he never really solidified his character. He plays a thief, a milquetoast, a masher, a victim.

A stationary camera looks on as two dapper gents play a game of chess. One drinks and smokes, and when he looks away, his opponent moves two pieces. A fight ensues, first with the squirting of a seltzer bottle, then with fisticuffs. The combatants wrestle each other to the floor and continue the fight out of the camera’s view, hidden by the table. The waiter arrives to haul both of them out.

Leon’s friend Harry Harvey wants to go on to a party after they return from a fishing trip, so Leon takes Harry’s car and heads for home. A blonde, thinking the car is a Taxi, gets in and orders Leon to take her home. The police chase the speeding Leon, and he eludes them but they get the license number and arrest Harry. Leon tells the Judge that Harry was on his way to get married, and the judge offers to perform the ceremony. Leon is forced to masquerade as the bride, which lasts only until Harry’s wife shows up.

The tale of an average guy who wants to read the newspaper or fish in peace. Unfortunately, he can’t because of a brat of a son and a rough mother-in-law. Such a simple story that will have you gasping your breath.

Coke Ennyday, the scientific detective, divides his own time in periods for “Sleep”, “Eat”, “Dope” and “Drink”. In fact he’s used to overcome every situation with drugs: consuming it to increase his energies or injecting it in his opponents to KO them. To help the police he discovers a contraband of opium (which he eagerly tastes) transported with “Leaping Fishes”, and the blackmail of a mysterious man who wants to marry the “fish blower” girl. Will Coke be able to free the girl ?

Walrus and his wife run the Walrus Hotel, which acrobats Mr. & Mrs. Ambrose are staying at. Walrus gets a letter from his insurance broker Mr. Cinder demanding a payment. Short on cash, Walrus decides to get his tenants’ money now. Ambrose and his wife are in the middle of a domestic squabble when Walrus pays a visit, and his presence only makes things worse. Mr. Cinder visits Walrus himself, and he carelessly throws his cigarette into a trash can. After he leaves, the hotel catches on fire and the rest of the film is a thrilling five-minute race to pay off the insurance!