Author Archive: Retro

A nervy young man follows a pretty lady into a diner to flirt with her, but winds up getting stuck with the tab.

Roscoe, his wife and his mother-in-law run a seaside resort. Buster plays a gardener who puts out a fire started by Roscoe, then a delivery boy who fights with the cook St. John, then a cop.

Musty works in an automat where the customers steal food using slugs and reaching through the vending doors. Musty smashes them over the head with a mallet, and dumps the bodies down a chute to what appears to be a sausage processor.

All that survives of Marcel Perez’ last screen performance is a two-minute fragment of him dealing — unsuccessfully — with a toothache. After this, he couldn’t act any more. He worked as a director and gag man, and died before the silent era ended, his legacy scattered and lost.

Henry Aldrich swallows a serum by accident and ends up in a “haunted” house.

The title of this short pretty much sums up the plot: Perez stands to inherit a lot of money if he is married, so he asks fellow lineman Tom Murray and his wife, Babette Perez, to pretend she is married to Perez. As this is a comedy, you will not be surprised to discover this is not carried out successfully.

Ben falls in love with Dora Darling, the star in a motion picture. He “finds” some money and starts for the studios. He is followed by the crooks, whose money he has appropriated. He is put to work in the studio as assistant property man, after giving them some of his money. Ben cannot make any progress with Dora because she and Demon Desmonde are already in love with each other. After many funny situations Ben is blown up by the crooks, but manages to escape alive; the crooks are arrested.

Musty needs a job, so when Della Connor needs a maid, a butler and a gardener, Musty is hired three times.