Author Archive: Retro

Clyde has selected Stedman as the chosen suitor for daughter O’Leary over her preferred lover Pendleton, but Stedman’s true colors are exposed during a beach rowboat expedition with Clyde.

When Mr. Martin and everyone else in Mosby Manor hears strange noises during the night, they fear that it might be the ghost of Martin’s uncle, who died in the Civil War. But the next day, the local constable investigates, and he finds mice in the attic who are making the odd sounds by crawling across some musical instruments stored there. But their relief does not last long. As they are showing the house to some potential buyers, a new series of strange, inexplicable, and increasingly frightening events begins.

In an effort to get a contract from a British industrialist, Errol arranges a stag party featuring exotic dancer Claire Carleton, whom he is forced to introduce to his wife as Lady Epping; Errol must then disguise himself as Lord Epping, and the inevitable complications follow.

Edgar’s brother-in-law persuades Edgar to indulge in a little betting at the race track, and Edgar loses $900. While entertaining a banker to get on a loan, for a supposed worthy purpose, the bookie’s henchman shows up demanding to be paid.

Errol’s obnoxious father-in-law sends Leon’s picture to a matrimonial agency, which causes plenty of confusion when the bride-to-be arrives.

With the collection agency after his furniture, Errol’s solution is to disguise himself as a bearded crystal gazer.

Pop’s noisy mechanical clock is driving Edgar crazy.

Only the second reel of this 1918 Jester comedy is known to survive. The first half, in which it is established that Marcel Perez (known as “Twede-Dan” here as opposed to his other numerous screen aliases,including “Tweedie, Tweedledum”, “Bungles”, “Robinet” and, I suspect, Julia Swayne Gordon) is a private eye who has decided that Nilda Baracchi is a German spy. He follows her hither and yon and the gags are mostly about his ability to disguise himself as a railroad porter, an armchair or a pile of discarded newspapers at a moment’s notice.

Not wishing to see their nephew marry a hotel manucurist, Leon and his wife decide to stop the wedding plans. At the hotel, Leon mistakes Maizie (Dorothy Granger), the gold-digging girl friend of the house detective (Tom Kennedy), for his nephew’s intended. He invites her up to his room and promises her a trip to Havana if she will jilt the nephew. Enter Maizie’s boy friend, followed by Leon’s wife, both of whom are sure Leon is up to hanky-panky and Leon, as usual, is up to…and in it.