George "Slim" Summerville Movies

This "lost" film would be especially valuable to see again, if only for two reasons: It was the second American effort of German director Paul Leni (of Cat and the Canary), and it represented the second screen appearance of Earl Derr Biggers' celebrated oriental sleuth, Charlie Chan. The plot is motivated by a pearl necklace, which has caused the death and/or ruination of all its owners. Disguised as a servant, Honolulu detective Chan (played by Japanese actor Sojin) delivers the pearls to his client -- who is promptly killed. Retaining his "hired help" guise, Chan snoops around the dead man's estate, hoping that one of the guests will reveal himself (or herself) as the murderer. Providing the vital clue in this instance is the titular Chinese parrot, who can understand Chinese and translate it into English! Anna May Wong appears briefly in the opening sequences as a hootchy-kootchy dancer who is murdered just before delivering an important bit of information to Mr. Chan. The Chinese Parrot was remade in 1934 as Charlie Chan's Courage --which, like its predecessor, apparently no longer exists. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Released June 24, 1917, A Dog Catcher's Love was one of the last of the Mack Sennett comedies to be released under the Keystone brand; within four months, the producer would dissolve Keystone and reorganize under the imprimatur of Mack Sennett Productions. The dog catcher of the title is arrow-narrow Slim Summerville, and his "love" is pert Peggy Pearce. Alas, Summerville's rival is handsome bow-wow fancier Glen Cavender, whose luck with women borders on the fantastic. But when Peggy is kidnapped by foreign spies, it is Summerville and his faithful hound Teddy (a top Keystone star in his own right) who gallop to the rescue. A genuine battleship and submarine are brought into play during the film's slapstick-orgy finale. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Charlie Chaplin's 28th Keystone comedy pits him against Chester Conklin as rival for the attentions of their landlady Gene Marsh and for Chester's girlfriend Cecile Arnold. After the midday meal, each of the rivals tries to chat up the landlady, only to be prevented by the other. They decide to go out together to prevent a fight but split up as Charlie stops in front of a bar while Chester proceeds to a park. Charlie is distracted, however, by a passing beauty who gives him the eye. He follows her a bit but is put off by the lady's large boyfriend. Going on to the park, Charlie has a confrontation with the large boyfriend and observes Chester's meeting with his girlfriend, who is incredibly solicitous. She begs for affection and even gives Chester money, much to Charlie's amazement and envy. Charlie eventually dispatches both boyfriends and follows the girls to a movie theatre where, sitting between them, he charms the pair of beauties, making some rather amusing gestures with his feet. The boyfriends show up and replace the girls in their seats while Charlie dozes. A fight ensues in which Charlie is thrown through the movie screen. ~ Phil Posner, All Movie Guide

Charlie Chaplin's 20th film for Keystone marks a turning point in his career. From this point on, with one exception, he was to write and direct all his future films. In Laughing Gas Chaplin plays a dentist's assistant who is first seen entering the office officiously. The patients are fooled into thinking he is the dentist himself, until he picks up the spittoons and exits to a back room. He confronts a midget-size co-worker there. The Dentist finally arrives and the first patient is admitted. Laughing gas is administered, and the extraction performed, but the dentist is not able to awaken the patient. He sends Chaplin out to the pharmacy for an antidote. Chaplin encounters Mack Swain who is standing in front of the pharmacy, blocking the entrance. Chaplin gains entrance by performing some of his famous hat tricks, which non plus Swain. Exiting the pharmacy Chaplin gets into a fight with Swain which evolves into brick throwing, during which Swain and an innocent bystander, Slim Summerville, are both hit in the face, turning them both into dental patients. On his way back to the office, Chaplin encounters and flirts with the dentist's wife and accidentally tears off her skirt. When Chaplin arrives with the medicine, the patient has left, and the dentist has been called away to attend his distraught wife. Chaplin admits a beautiful female patient who he pretends to examine but with whom he flirts by grasping her nose with a pair of pliers and kissing her, to her apparent amusement. Summerville and Swain then arrive at the office and Swain catches sight of Chaplin in the back room. The dentist and his wife arrive and a melee ensues in which everyone is literally kicked out onto the pavement, except Chaplin and the wife who collapse in the waiting room. ~ Phil Posner, All Movie Guide

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