Saturday’s selection of silents featured Edward Everett Horton in a short, Horse Shy (1928) and the feature, Helen’s Babies (1924). Oddly, I preferred the short over the feature.
In Horse Shy, Horton plays a hapless fellow invited to a fox hunt. We first meet him struggling to squeeze into his riding boots. Once he’s booted up, he realizes that his jodhpurs are on backwards. And his main problem? He really dislikes horses. In a bit of a running gag, horses seem to sense this and snap at him, chase him, and generally make his life miserable. On top of that, the daughter (Nita Cavalier) of the Colonel (who owns the estate where the hunt will take place) takes a shine to Horton. Then on top of that, a prankster has told her that Horton is quite the accomplished rider, so he is assigned Keno, the most spirited horse in the stable.
The horns are sounded and they’re off! Mayhem ensues—Keno is off like a rocket, Horton is thrown, he ends up remounted backwards, at one point he vaults over a wall only to land on a donkey going the other way, etc. A lot of the sight gags were truly laugh-out-loud funny. In the happy ending department, he gets the girl but not the fox. In fact he gets a skunk!
The program notes for Helen’s Babies point out that Horton had two famous leading ladies in this film—Baby Peggy, at the peak of her career, and Clara Bow, rapidly rising to stardom. The plot? Helen and her husband have the two best children in the world. Helen’s brother, a bachelor who doesn’t even like children (Horton), has written a very successful book on how to raise children. He’s coming for a visit, so Helen and her husband decide to take a brief getaway, knowing that their wonderful children will be in the capable hands of Horton.
Well, these kids are kids. They “help” their uncle by unpacking his suitcase and making a shambles of it. Shirt collars are mashed, straw hats are squashed, etc. He really has his hands full. Humorous bits. But some were more disturbing. At one point, after shaving, Horton gets distracted. Baby Peggy, wanting to be just like uncle, climbs on a stool, lathers her face, proceeds to unfold the straight razor, falls off of the stool and ends up with the razor perilously close to her face. I found this a little less than humorous. A neighbor (Ms. Bow) happens by, helps out with the two little girls, takes a shining to Horton and invites them to Sunday dinner. After a faux pas involving giving Ms. Bow a doll baby instead of flowers (Baby Peggy strikes again), everyone prepares to go in to dinner. Oops. The girls get distracted by a doggie, chase it down the lane, eventually ending up on railroad tracks—with a train approaching! When Horton and Bow realize the girls are gone, they set off in hot pursuit.
The little girls are rescued just in time and reunited with their parents who, as fate would have it, happened to be on the train. Helen is furious, but calms down when the little girls show how much they love their uncle. And Horton gets the girl! I didn’t find the gags all that funny in this one, and the plot seemed convoluted and not all that interesting to me.
As usual, the program notes, by Steve Massa, were nicely done and very interesting. The second of the curators, Bruce Lawton, ended up being the projectionist, and Ben Model, providing superb piano accompaniment, was a true joy. There are two more programs in the summer series.
ConcertMeister
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