Mack Swain Movies

A video compilation of cutting-room-floor footage from the works of Charles Chaplin. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. narrates. ~ Rovi

This volume includes three separate shorts of comedy from the '30s. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

In this youthful comedy, a child genius has fun getting her cousin into trouble. The bright girl's parents take her and her nephew on a sea cruise to Paris. En route, the girl treats the boy abominably. First she pushes him over the boat, then she stuffs him down an airshaft. Later she sticks his head in a fishbowl. When she is not bedeviling her cousin, she is helping her father get out of trouble with con artists. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

"Sea Bat" is another name for the poisonous sting rays that trouble swimmers in warmer ocean climes. The story is set upon a tropical island and centers on the sister of a reef diver who was attacked under water by another diver and left to be eaten by an enormous sea bat (in reality the rays eat plankton). The distraught young woman, looking for solace, goes to a recently arrived priest, who, unfortunately is an escaped convict from Devil's Island in disguise. He and the girl's attempts to solve the murder are constantly thwarted until the title creature gets involved and sees that deep sea justice is served. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this mystery, a producer reopens a theater where five years before, a lead actor was killed on stage during a performance. The murder remained unsolved. To solve the mystery, the producer stages the same play with the same cast. As the play is performed, the same series of events occurs and the lead actor vanishes. It is eventually discovered that a masked stage manager is behind the it all. He has set up the whole thing to force stockholders to withdraw from the production. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This late silent effort from Warner Bros. stars Conrad Nagel and May McAvoy. Nagel plays a wealthy young sprout who makes an unannounced visit to his mother's houseboat. Here he confronts a gang of thieves, including the lovely McAvoy. Somewhat amused, Nagel offers no protest when the crooks assume that he's a burglar. When another team of burglars shows up, posing as house guests, Nagel, having fallen in love with McAvoy, convinces the first gang of crooks to pose as servants. Caught in the Fog included a handful of talkie sequences, dispelling the then-prevalent rumor that May McAvoy suffered from a speech impediment which rendered her dialogue unintelligible. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The present unavailability of 1928's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is especially frustrating for those who'd like to compare this first version of the classic Anita Loos comic novel to the 1953 Marilyn Monroe-Jane Russell remake. The blonde in question is Miss Lorelei Lee, a dumb-like-a-fox golddigger on the prowl for a rich husband. With her best friend Dorothy Shaw (Alice White), Lorelei takes a trip to Gay Paree, where among other adventures she gets mixed up with roguish old millionaire Sir Francis Beekman (Mack Swain). Eventually she finds that true love doesn't come with a price tag, or does it? Ford Sterling and Holmes Herbert co-star as Lorelei and Dorothy's middle-aged swains. Lorelei herself is played by Ruth Taylor, a onetime Mack Sennett bathing beauty who retired from films upon her marriage to a Manhattan stockbroker (life imitates art!) Incidentally, Taylor was the mother of humorist Buck Henry. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

One of the better "Abie's Irish Rose" derivations of the late 1920s, The Shamrock and the Rose was adapted from a play by Owen Davis Sr. Set in New York's Lower East Side, "where the melting pot boils over," it's the story of a Jewish girl (Olive Hasbrouck) who falls in love with an Irish boy (Edmund Burns). While the hero's parents are delighted at the prospect of his marriage, the girl's mother and father are beside themselves, prompting the heroine to consider converting to Catholicism. She is diverted from this course by an understanding priest (former matinee idol Maurice Costello, in a very minor role) who exhorts her to take pride in her Hebraic heritage. The differences between the two families are settled comedically a year or so later, when the heroine is rushed to the maternity hospital. The film's best performance is delivered by Keystone veteran Mack Swain as the hero's boisterous father. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Mary Pickford stars as the "Miss Fix-it" for her eccentric family. Pickford's job at a dime-store keeps her postman dad (Lucien Littlefield), addlepated mom (Sunshine Hart) and loose-living sister (Carmelita Geraghty) from going under. She falls in love with handsome Charles "Buddy" Rogers, never dreaming that the boy is the son of store-owner Hobart Bosworth. The "meeting cute" scene between Pickford and Rogers has been so often excerpted in silent-movie compilations that it's possible many viewers have it memorized. Based on a story by Kathleen Norris, My Best Girl served to introduce Mary Pickford to future-husband Rogers (they were wed nearly a decade later). Lucien Littlefield, the "old codger" who plays Pickford's father, was in reality three years younger than Pickford! ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Although it ran a very scant four reels (it was actually 3,303 feet in length), comedy producer Mack Sennett marketed this film as a feature. In spite of its short length, it did have quite a bit going for it, not the least being the scenes of the Sennett bathing beauties, which were shot in Technicolor, and the presence of a very young Carole Lombard (with her first name spelled "Carolle") in a small role. On the negative side was the plot (typical for a Sennett film). Apparently, the original concept was to show where the bathing beauties came from, but after a reel, this idea was tossed out the window and the usual Sennett mayhem ensued (including a climax featuring a bunch of lions on the loose). Wilfred Ashcraft is a director of bathing beauty films (Mack Swain, creating a complete comic portrayal of Cecil B. DeMille, down to the puttees). As Minnie Stitch, tiny Daphne Pollard plays a wardrobe mistress. Ashcraft decides they need a big star and import the exotic Madam Zwibach from somewhere or another (Dot Farley). That's pretty much all there is to the story -- the rest is left up to witty title cards and, of course, the Technicolor bathing beauties. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

Finnegan's Ball was typical of the low-comedy ethnic shenanigans common to films of the 1920s. The warm relationship between the Finnegan family and the Flannigan clan gets warmer when Patrick Flannigan (Mack Swain) becomes Danny Finnegan's (Charles P. McHugh) boss. Things get ice cold, however, when Finnegan inherits a fortune and begins high-hatting his former employer. All is forgiven when the legacy turns out to be a phony. A subplot concerns the rocky romance between Molly Finnegan (Blanche Mehaffey) and Pat Flannigan Jr. (Cullen Landis). Finnegan's Ball was based on a play by George H. Emerick. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Though Will Rogers was still packing 'em in on Broadway, he was considered a Hollywood has-been when he starred in the independently produced A Texas Steer. Rogers also wrote the screenplay of this "topical comedy," in which he plays Texas rancher Maverick Brander, who is maneuvered into politics by his status-seeking wife Ma (Louise Fazenda). Unfortunately, Maverick finds himself at the mercy of a trio of corrupt political hacks who want our hero to use his influence to push through a piece of questionable legislation. The opponents of the bill contrive to abduct Maverick, but he escapes in time to strike a blow for honesty in Washington. The level of humor in the film can be gauged by such character names as "Bossy Brander," "Dixie Style" and "Fairleigh Bright." A Texas Steer had its moments, but Will Rogers would have to wait until talkies arrived to fully blossom as a film star. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi