The Keystone Kops Movies
Riotously rough-and-tumble, creating slapstick mayhem and buffoonery wherever they went, Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops were the kings of early silent comedy. It was character actor Hank Mann who first conceived of the Kops. It took a bit of doing, but Mann successfully convinced Sennett to make movies centered around his new team. The original seven Keystone Kops were George Jesky, Bobby Dunn, Mack Riley, Charles Avery, Slimm Summerville, Edgar Kennedy, and Hank Mann. Mann played police chief Teeheezel for only a short while before he was replaced by comedian Ford Serling, the most famous Kop of all. They made their debut in Hoffmeyer's Legacy (1912), but did not hit the big time until they appeared in The Bangville Police. As a team, the Kops performed all their own stunts, many of which involved moving vehicles, tall buildings, and of course, custard pies in the face. This was funny and thrilling onscreen, but during production the pratfalls and stunts could be quite dangerous. During the two years the Kops reigned, some of young Hollywood's most gifted comedians would pass through their ranks, notably Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Chester Conklin. In 1914, the Keystone Kops were replaced by the daring Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties, who would include such screen sirens as Gloria Swanson. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1961
This is one in a series of entertaining cinematic compilations by Robert Youngson that reviews aspects of the history of film (The Golden Age of Comedy and When Comedy Was King directly preceded this release). As in its predecessors, this compilation looks back on the more distant past. Renowned comics like Charlie Chaplin, Mack Sennet and the Keystone Kops, Fatty Arbuckle, Stan Laurel, and others are featured in some of the best moments in their filmic careers. As for the thrillers, those times when the heroine was tied to the train tracks or the hero's car balanced on the edge of a cliff, they are as hilarious in retrospect as the comedies were to that generation. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
The first of documentary producer Robert Youngson's feature-length silent comedy compilations, The Golden Age of Comedy began life as a short subject, consisting of vintage clips from the Mack Sennett vaults. When Youngson struck a deal with the Hal Roach studios, he was able to expand the film's running time with pristine-quality vignettes from the Roach catalogue. While many past greats are highlighted in Golden Age, the compilation's true "stars" are Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, shown at their very best in lengthy excerpts from such 2-reel classics as The Second Hundred Years (1927), You're Darn Tootin' (1928) Two Tars (1928) and Double Whoopee (1929) (the latter featuring a 17-year-old starlet named Jean Harlow). Thanks to Youngson, the legendary pie fight scene from Laurel and Hardy's Battle of the Century (1927) was saved from the brink of extinction and is included herein. The rest of the film offers choice comic bits from the likes of Ben Turpin, Billy Bevan, Will Rogers, Charley Chase, Harry Langdon, and even Carole Lombard. Our only carp is that the narration is frequently superfluous; we can see the gags, we don't need them explained to us. The Golden Age of Comedy was the surprise hit of 1958, spawning several future Youngson compilations, including a brace of 1960s films devoted almost exclusively to Laurel and Hardy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harry Langdon
- 1949
Down Memory Lane is a pastiche film comprised of old comedy footage from the Mack Sennett studios. The vintage clips are tied together by a thin continuity wherein TV host Steve Allen hopes to boost his ratings by screening excerpts from Sennett's silent and talkie two-reel comedies. Among the films represented are The Singing Boxer with Donald Novis, Blue of the Night with Bing Crosby, and The Dentist with W.C. Fields. Mack Sennett himself shows up at the end for an explosive punch line to this chaotic collection of comedy clips. Down Memory Lane is a mess, but a funny mess; auteur theorists are advised not to search for a thematic connection between this film and director Phil Karlson's later "cult" classics. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steve Allen, Bing Crosby, (more)
This Keystone comedy, Charlie Chaplin's 33rd, is the first feature-length comedy ever made and contributed to making Chaplin and his co-star Marie Dressler major stars. Chaplin plays a con artist (not the Tramp) who talks Tillie, an innocent country lass, into taking her father's savings and running off to the city with him. Once there, he re-establishes his affair with the beautiful Mabel Normand, abandoning Tillie, who must begin working at a restaurant, while Charlie and Mabel spend her father's money for new clothes. Meanwhile, Tillie's millionaire uncle is reported to have died in a mountain-climbing accident. When the opportunistic Charlie learns that Tillie has just inherited three million dollars, he immediately rushes over to propose. She joyfully accepts, but is suspicious when she learns of her inheritance. Later, at a wedding gala at Tillie's new mansion where Normand has begun working as a maid, Charlie sneaks off for a little tete-a-tete with the latter. Trouble erupts when Dressler catches them smooching. Suddenly all the slapstick craziness for which director Mack Sennett is famous erupts as Tillie grabs a pistol and begins chasing Charlie and Mabel, firing randomly. Just as the wayward Charlie is to be strangled to death, the "late" uncle suddenly appears and ejects all the celebrants. Charlie and Mabel, chased by Tillie, race out of the ruined mansion to a pier where they are followed by the ubiquitous Keystone Kops whom the uncle has summoned. Tillie ends up in the drink, and when rescued after numerous attempts, she rejects Charlie while consoling Mabel, saying, "He ain't no good to neither of us," as the Kops drag Charlie away. ~ Phil Posner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie Dressler, Charles Chaplin, (more)
- 1914
Charlie Chaplin's 29th comedy for Keystone was one of his most popular, grossing $130,000 in its initial year of release. It was shot before, but released after Those Love Pangs, and was originally conceived as an early sequence of the latter, showing Charlie and Chester Conklin at work in a combination cafe/bakery. The sequence was so good Mack Sennett suggested that Chaplin expand it. Waiter Charlie has his mind on a waitress as he clears one patron's plate onto the food of another. He mans the bakery counter and is taken with a female customer, especially her hip movements which he imitates. He gets into fights with fellow-waiter Chester and disrupts work in the bakery below. The bakers strike for higher wages and Charlie and Chester are impressed into service as bakers at which both are inept. The striking bakers plot revenge as one of them buys a loaf of bread and inserts a stick of dynamite into it. They send a little girl to return it as undercooked, and the owner's wife brings it downstairs to have it baked further. She observes Charlie's method of bagel making - whipping a roll of dough around his wrist forming a ring and rolling it off over his hand. Meanwhile the owner (Fritz Schade) has been noticing that the waitresses have dough on their derrieres, indicating they've been socializing with Charlie in the bakery. When his wife returns from downstairs, the owner likewise sees dough on her behind, put there by Charlie, and he flies into a rage. He goes down to the bakery and berates Charlie, slaps him around and chases him upstairs to the restaurant and down again. In self defense Charlie flings dough and flour bags at Fritz and Chester. Just then the oven explodes, covering Chester and Fritz with debris and burying Charlie under a huge lump of dough from which he emerges, eyes first, as the film ends. ~ Phil Posner, All Movie Guide
