Send in the Clowns (2/26/16)

The silent clowns, that is. Saturday afternoon at the movies featured four silent films, all starring Max Davidson (who was totally new to me).

Call of the Cuckoo (1927)
Should Second Husbands Come First? (1927)
Flaming Fathers (1927)
Pass the Gravy (1928)

From the program notes, I learned that Max Davidson was well into middle age when he came into his own in Hollywood, and didn’t have the grace of a Chaplin, nor the ability to do stunts and falls like Keaton. His comedic focus was his face and shoulders. At first, I feared that some of his bag-of-tricks shtick would be too repetitive, but that turned out not to be the case. In all four films, the settings and situations were part of what made them so funny. And they were laugh out loud funny quite often. I especially enjoyed Call of the Cuckoo, which featured an early teaming of Laurel and Hardy as half of a foursome of real kooks (hence the Cuckoo in the title). And Ben Model, providing live piano accompaniment, made ample use of the cuckoo-clock motif throughout. Even the sets were funny in this one!

Should Second Husbands Come First? featured Spec O’Donnell, who was also in Cuckoo and Pass the Gravy. He and his brother were trying to stop a man, Davidson, from marrying their widowed mother. They had quite a few sight gags going on behind their mother’s back, designed to scare off the new suitor. Lots of funny goings on.

Flaming Fathers had Davidson getting into quite a lot of trouble at the beach, while trying to keep his daughter from eloping. At one point, there were about twenty little kids following him around through a series of sight gags. It was like Keystone Kids instead of Keystone Kops.

Pass the Gravy centered on a prize-winning rooster who ended up being dinner. Everybody, except for the owner of the rooster, realized that the dinner was the prize winner, and then tried to keep the owner from finding out. It did not work, but lots of funny stuff led up to that final realization.

So, four comedies starring a relatively big Hollywood name of the silent era. One I’d never heard of. Boy, I’m glad I have now. Bruce Lawton spoke warmly about the star of the day, Steve Massa’s program notes were very informative, and
Mr. Model provided the superb accompaniments. Kudos to the Silent Clowns Film Series. Check out their website – www.silentclowns.com – if you’re so inclined.

ConcertMeister
(or, in this case, FilmMeister)