Jimmy Aubrey Movies

Fireman Rex Lease doesn't like the attentions paid by his rival Theodore Von Eltz to his sweetheart Wanda Hawley. The animosity results in a fistfight, with Lease easily trouncing his opponent. Seeking revenge, Von Eltz steals the Fireman's Ball funds and places the blame on Lease. When our hero and his girl manage to locate the cash, the bitter rival sets the building on fire. The spectacular climactic conflagration and rescue must have cost at least three-fourths of the film's budget. Produced by low-budget Rayart Pictures (a precursor to Monogram), The Last Alarm taps the talents of three motion picture veterans who'd all seen better days: director Oscar Apfel (who collaborated with Cecil B. DeMille on 1913's The Squaw Man) and actors Maurice Costello and Florence Turner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Former serial star Charles Hutchison warmed the director's chair for The Winning Wallop. Hero Rex Burton (William Fairbanks) wants to become a professional athlete, but his wealthy father has other ideas. To prove that he's made a good career choice, Rex hires himself out as a gym instructor at a woman's training camp. For the sake of the camp's owner pretty Marion Wayne (Shirley Palmer), our hero agrees to fight the "champ" for a $100,000 purse. Offered a bribe to lose the bout, Rex turns the tables on the crooks, who retaliate by attempting to kill Marion's father and then placing the blame on Rex. A wild and perilous car chase ensues, the end result being the capture of the crooks and hugs and kisses for Rex and Marion. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Vitagraph shot a number of comedian Jimmy Aubrey's two-reelers on location. This one was filmed in Truckee, in northern California, in the middle of a frozen December, so its title was quite appropriate. Jimmy is a resident at a shabby boarding house and a blizzard is blowing outside. While trying to keep the cold air from coming in through the cracks, Jimmy breaks the whole window and is blown out into the hall, where he knocks over the janitor (Oliver Hardy). The next morning, Jimmy shovels the snow out of his window -- right onto the janitor and a cop. They go after him, and when he stops to pacify a crying baby, the janitor catches up with him. Jimmy is getting the worst of it until the infant's mother (Maude Emory) shows up. Then, somehow, he manages to get the upper hand. This does not impress the woman, who happens to be the janitor's wife, and she begs him to stop. In spite of Jimmy's apologies, the janitor tosses him out the window, and he lands in a waiting ambulance that drives off. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This Western comedy was the last in which Jimmy Aubrey used Oliver Hardy as his foil. Jimmy is riding on a stage coach that is held up by an outlaw (Hardy) and his gang. Jimmy creates so much havoc that the bandits hold him hostage. He gets away and climbs up a tree with the bad guys in pursuit. They lasso him and pull him -- and the tree top -- down, but Jimmy cuts the rope. He is catapulted through the air and lands in a covered wagon, where he uses the food as missiles to fend off the outlaws. Jimmy stays with the pioneer family that night, but the outlaws return. Before they can do any harm, however, everyone runs off in fright -- everyone except the oblivious Jimmy, who attempts to embrace the family's pretty daughter, not realizing he's hugging a bear. When he finally realizes that it's not the girl he's cuddling, he dashes off after everyone else. A few weeks after the completion of this film, Aubrey signed a new contract with Vitagraph, which did not include Hardy, nor his director, Jesse Robbins, or cameraman Irving Reis. Perhaps this wasn't the wisest move on Aubrey's part -- Robbins and Reis went onto features, and Hardy went to work for the studio's number one comic, Larry Semon (and would later gain comic immortality when he teamed up with Stan Laurel). Aubrey, meanwhile, remained one of silent comedy's lesser lights. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This two-reel comedy is one of Vitagraph's more amusing vehicles for their second-string comic Jimmy Aubrey (their first-stringer at the time was Larry Semon). Aubrey plays a mechanic who goes to work for the village blacksmith (Dick Dickinson), but spends more time mooning over the blacksmith's daughter (Dixie Lamont). Because of Jimmy's ineptitude, the blacksmith can't pay his rent and the landlord (Oliver Hardy, looking appropriately villainous) threatens to marry the daughter to settle the debt. The blacksmith goes after the cause of his trouble -- Jimmy -- who escapes by hiding in the landlord's limo. There, he finds a strongbox and takes out enough money to help out the girl. The only problem is that she has already agreed to marry the bad guy. Jimmy chases after them and the pursuit ends when they all go over a cliff. In the end, Jimmy manages to hand over the money and earn the girl's love. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Comedian Jimmy Aubrey thwarts a Spanish revolution in this two-reel Vitagraph comedy. The favorite toreador (Oliver Hardy) of a sleepy little Spanish town is the mastermind behind the planned overthrow. The government, aware of his plot, has sent a spy to investigate. When Jimmy arrives in town, he is mistaken for the spy (which clearly doesn't say much for the current regime). The revolutionaries put him behind bars to keep him out of the way, but he escapes, dressed in the warden's outfit. At a tavern, he is busy rescuing the ladies from a threatening mouse when he's seen by the toreador and his henchmen. A bull breaks loose and charges into the plaza, scaring off the bad guys before they can do Jimmy any damage. Jimmy, who knows nothing about bulls, leaps on its back and squelches the revolution. For his efforts, he wins the village's prettiest maiden (Maude Emory). ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Jesse Robbins, who oversaw Charles Chaplin's films for Essanay, directed this Jimmy Aubrey comedy, which has something of a Chaplinesque feel about it. Aubrey plays a tramp whose thieving ways are cured by a pretty settlement worker (Dixie Lamont), who convinces him to go straight. Still hungry, the tramp sits down at a food-laden table only to discover that the family who is sitting down to eat is about to be evicted for non-payment of rent. The landlord (Oliver Hardy) hires Jimmy to help him oust the unwanted tenants. Jimmy, however, takes pity on them and steals the money from the landlord to help them pay the rent. Later, he saves the settlement worker from a kidnap attempt and she has him over for dinner to reward him. Unfortunately, it turns out that her father is the mean landlord. The landlord goes after Jimmy, but his punches are thrown wild and hit everything but his target. Finally he knocks down a post that supports the house and it comes crashing down. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

In the first two dozen films comedian Jimmy Aubrey made for Vitagraph, his foil was a pre-Stan Laurel Oliver Hardy. By the time they were working on the second dozen films, the studio was giving Hardy quite a bit of room in their press kits, something that likely did not please Aubrey, whose talents paled beside what Hardy later accomplished. Here, Aubrey plays a park janitor whose antics frustrate and annoy the park commissioner (Hardy). A thief who has already robbed the commissioner (with Jimmy's inadvertent help) decides to also kidnap his baby. While the commissioner and his wife are following the instructions on the ransom note, Jimmy picks up the infant with the trash and later finds it in his garbage can. Everyone winds up at the designated meeting place and a fracas ensues. Jimmy winds up returning the baby to its mother, and the grateful commissioner rewards Jimmy...with a brand-new broom. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Although this Jimmy Aubrey comedy was shot on Catalina Island, all that is ever really seen of the lovely surroundings is the pier and the ocean, where Aubrey constantly gets dunked. Aubrey plays a tourist who is more interested in checking out the bathing beauties than he is any other sort of scenery. While attempting to flirt with a nursemaid (Estelle Harrison), he falls into the water and is rescued by the reluctant lifeguard (Oliver Hardy). Two crooks try to make their getaway in a motorboat, but their mooring line drags a baby carriage into the ocean. Jimmy leaps onto a whale's back to save the child, but he is swallowed by the whale. He escapes from the whale and saves the baby from an octopus. Just then he wakes up and realizes it was all a dream -- the octopus' tentacles turn out to be a rope. Jimmy tries to flirt with the nursemaid again, but the lifeguard -- who happens to be her sweetheart -- picks him up and tosses him in the water. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

As usual, this Jimmy Aubrey comedy makes little sense, but it contains a lot of gags. Jimmy is a dentist's assistant who turns the office upside down while the dentist is away. After using a variety of ways to extract teeth, including a mallet and a hammer and chisel, he has to chase after a floating patient who has taken too much laughing gas. Eventually, a basic plot emerges -- the bad guy (Oliver Hardy) lusts after the dentist's wife, whom the assistant also fancies. They're both trying to court her when the dentist -- an extremely jealous guy, and apparently with some reason -- gets home. They hide, none too successfully, and when the dentist finds them, chaos ensues. The bad guy abducts the wife and drives off, while the dentist and the assistant give chase on a motorcycle. Eventually the wife is rescued and returns home with her husband. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

For most of 1919 and 1920, Oliver Hardy worked at Vitagraph on the comedies of Jimmy Aubrey (Aubrey, a minor comedian, was a veteran of Fred Karno's troupe, alongside the far more talented Charles Chaplin and Stan Laurel). This knockabout entry was the first to be released with Aubrey and Hardy together. A young woman picks up a hitchhiker (Aubrey), and she offers him a job as the manager of a laundry that she owns. This does not please the laundry's foreman (Hardy) who wanted both the job and the owner's affection. The owner, meanwhile, is none too thrilled when she discovers that the hitchhiker has taken a liking to a cute blonde who works in the shop. The owner offers to wed the foreman if he manages to catch Jimmy with the blonde. This results in a big chase, much of it on board a train. A preacher becomes enmeshed in the mayhem, and after the railroad car goes sailing over the cliff, he marries Jimmy to the blonde. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This particular Jimmy Aubrey comedy actually has some sort of cohesive story line. Helping the laughs along (as he did in the first 24 films Aubrey made for Vitagraph) is Oliver Hardy, some eight years away from teaming up with Stan Laurel. Aubrey plays a tramp who falls for a pretty farmer's daughter. It turns out he has competition from the farm's hired hand (Hardy), who does his best to get rid of Jimmy. He's unsuccessful and Jimmy winds up sticking around and helping out. Unfortunately, Jimmy doesn't exactly know his way around a farm -- in fact he can't tell the bulls from the cows at milking time -- so he does more harm than good. The girl's father (Dick Smith) discovers that she is planning to elope, so he dresses up in her clothes to fool the object of her affections. Another girl who has a crush on Jimmy dresses up to look like the girl, too. Jimmy and the hired hand head for the preacher -- both with the wrong partners. The girl -- who was tied up by her father to keep her from going anywhere -- manages to free herself and shows up at the church too. Her real boyfriend, a soldier who has just returned from overseas, shows up, so the hired hand and Jimmy are both out of luck. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Jimmy Aubrey is upstaged by a monkey in this two-reel comedy. Aubrey plays the assistant to Strongarm, the local blacksmith (Oliver Hardy, who also upstaged Aubrey more often than not in the pictures they appeared in together). When a tax collector threatens to evict a girl (Maude Emory) and her family, she goes to Jimmy for help. He has no money, so he has to be creative. Strongarm is given a monkey, which proves to be a handful. Predictably, the chimp takes a liking to Jimmy. While Strongarm is away, Jimmy shoes a horse and buys food for the girl's family with the earnings. Then, when the tax collector unknowingly drops a wad of bills, the monkey snatches it up and gives it to Jimmy. Jimmy pays the family's tax bill and chases the tax collector away. The monkey featured here, Snookums, went on to have her own series of two-reel comedies for a film company called Chester. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide