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Charley Bowers: The Rediscovery of an American Comic Genius

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Charley Bowers is an almost forgotten master of stop-motion animation. The busy world of Bowers is filled with omnivorous birds that lay miraculous eggs, frisky animals, things that appear out of nowhere, machines that assemble and dismantle themselves, and usually Bowers himself as a typical silent-comedy patsy. The craftsmanship of his films is astounding, and animation enthusiasts will especially enjoy this collection of his rare short films. They are so rare indeed that surviving elements are often incomplete or partially damaged. In this DVD set, some of the silent subjects are shown with French title cards (and optional English subtitles). Others are American prints, and the quality is often extraordinary.

A sampling of Bowers's traditional animated efforts of the 1910s reveals that Bowers was an excellent pen-and-ink artist. The Mutt & Jeff cartoon GRILL ROOM EXPRESS gives the comic-strip characters little pantomimic touches that are very enjoyable. AWOL is a cautionary tale predating Warners' Private Snafu cartoons, showing what happens when a soldier goes joyriding. (Nothing illicit here, the soldier just has tough luck throughout). In the 1920s Bowers starred in live-action comedies that he embellished with his camera tricks; few exist but the DVD set is representative. The set claims to contain every surviving Charley Bowers title; this is incorrect. His silent short THERE IT IS!, in which Bowers looks like Buster Keaton and acts like Harry Langdon, is not included.

There is a certain archaeological fascination in watching the highly visual Mr. Bowers attempt the talking picture. IT'S A BIRD is the bizarre adventure of a bird whose eggs hatch into automobiles. Bowers speaks on the screen for the first time, and mixes silent-comedy visuals with dialogue sequences deftly. but his clown-white makeup is so overdone that he looks anachronistic, even for 1930. This DVD offers the 1947 reissue, circulated shortly after Bowers's death; the print shown here is infinitely clearer and cleaner than the film and video copies offered for years. BELIEVE IT OR DON'T is a rock-bottom-budget compilation fashioning old Bowers clips into a screen magazine. WILD OYSTERS, released as one of Paramount's "Animated Antics" in 1940, shows "Mom, Pop, and Snoozer" Mouse using household objects as home furnishings, with little Snoozer bedeviled by an angry cat and some vicious oysters. Bowers's 1940 approach is visually the same as his silent-era approach, with razor-sharp photography and amazingly fluid movement of three-dimensional objects -- and on top of animating the action figures, Bowers works in some synchronized dialogue! The source print on the DVD is a French release print with French titles, but the original English soundtrack is heard. A SLEEPLESS NIGHT, from the same series, is shown mute, with what may be a home-movie-distributor title.

The most amazing find in this collection is PETE ROLEUM AND HIS COUSINS, showing the Bowers technique in vivid color. Main and end titles are not shown and there is an occasional jump-splice, but it's good to see what survives. Narrator Bowers reads clever verses about how oil products improve everyday life. PETE ROLEUM resembles one of the George Pal "Puppetoons," but without as much sweetness or polish; instead of being a cute Pal fantasy for kids, it's an odd little industrial film. Bowers's quirky humor comes through despite an inferior soundtrack; the dialogue is distant, as though Bowers recorded it at home. The reel ends on a bright but strange note, with a good swing band accompanying Bowers's peculiar chorus line! The vocalist (sounds like Buddy Clark) and the song will stay with you for days. (Update: the film was shown at the 1939 World's Fair as a special exhibit, and the various gaps in the soundtrack were filled in by a live emcee interacting with the film, so the DVD shows only part of the experience designed by Bowers.)

The DVD also has a short documentary about Bowers (in French, with optional English subtitles), but it's basically the story of how film curators finally figured out who Bowers was. There is little biography, and nothing about Bowers's behind-the-scenes methods or his longtime director, Harold L. Muller. (Could Muller actually be Bowers? Hmm.)

This DVD set will appeal mostly to a specialized audience. Silent-film enthusiasts will admire the many off-the-wall ideas, while others may consider Bowers's work a little too weird. Either way, it's definitely something different, and one has to admire his painstaking approach to filmmaking, his ingenious special effects, and his flair for the absurd. Technical quality of the DVDs is excellent; print quality varies according to the surviving film elements but is generally excellent; most but not all of the silent subjects have musical accompaniment.

Much of what is credited to Charlie Bowers in the documentary is in fact the work of Dick Huemer. The translated version of "Grill Room Express" is such an example. First, there was no title originally released as this. The original title appears to have been "Flap Jacks" from 1917. The level of drawing, pen work, and execution of animation in this cartoon is superior to that displayed in the short exerpts seen in the documentary that are obviously from an earlier period. These were done by Bowers and Rauol Barre. Adding to this, the documentary shows drawings credited to Bowers that were Huemer's, including a gag cartoon done in 1969 where Jeff points to the thought balloons, asking, "Gee Mutt, do we always ahve to talk this way?" Mutt replies, "Of course you sap, sound ain't been invented yet."

Regarding the translation of the title cards from French to English, this is a classic case of the joke being lost in the translation. Besides the generic and unoffical title, "Grill Room Express," the translations from French are too literal, and the original dialogue seems altered to the extent that the humor is lost due to differences in context and idioms between the languages. This is a problem where plays on words that work in one language do not translate in other languages. In spite of this, "Grill Room Express" ("Flap Jacks") is a nice suriver from 1917, and displays a great amount of skill, but most of all displays personalities in the animated versions of these important comic strip characters at a time when other animated charcters had no personality. Although FELIX THE CAT has been recognized as the first animated character with personality, he came three years after the appearance of MUTT AND JEFF.

The MUTT AND JEFF animated series began in 1916, not 1912 since there were no commercially produced animated cartoons made this early. Winsor McCay displayed his first animated work, "Little Nemo" in 1911. His more famous "Gertie the Trained Dinosaur" came out in 1914. Two years later the first commercial animated cartoon studio was opened by Raoul Barre, followed later that year by John R. Bray. Barre, who was a French Candian, is not mentioned at all in the French documentary. This is ironic since this is a fact that Louise Beaudet, currator of La Cinemateque Quebecoise is certainly aware of. But it appears that the interview with her was edited in such a way that she appears not to mention Barre at all.

It is fortunate, however that interest has been renewed in MUTT AND JEFF, which has been a part of our culture for nearly 100 years. Although many today do not connect with the comic strip characters, they are familiar with the term referring to the teaming of tall and short. Having just completed a documentary showcase on the subjectof MUTT AND JEFF has given me the insight and authority for these comments, allowing me to present a more accurate portayal than what is given in the DVD discussed here.

This is an amazing package for any silent film buff. Genuinely ingenious comedy films by a forgotten master of comic fantasy.
This is a two-disc set with all the available information on Bowers, a former animator who moved into live-action two-reelers starring hiimself. The coup de grace of every film are the stop motion sequences--precise, inventive and surreal visual gags as bizzare as anything ever done in a cartoon. The meticulous attention to detail in the execution is awe-inspiring. There are also working mechanical marvels that pre-figure the oddball inventions of Dr. Suess and double-exposure tricks that are suprisingly sophisticated. Between "EGGED ON," "THE WILD ROOMER" and "NOW YOU TELL ONE," literally every trick in the book is employed to maximum effect.

There are only nine of twenty silent films here, and the others are considered lost. Thanks go to a Belgian filmographer for hunting down what's here and restoring it.
Each silent comedy is a gem of plotting and escalating lunacy. All are accompanied by French screen captions, which have been more or less faithfully translated back into English in the subtitles. Nice accurate piano recordings on the soundracks of the silents, too, several offer altnernate music.

The only failing in my opinion is Bowers himself, a nimble stuntman who seems like a poor man's Busteer Keaton with zero screen presence. He could almost pass for Keaton in some of the shots, and in a few scenes he seems to be trying on Harold Lloyd's everyman. Unfortunately he just comes off as ordinary.
The other problem is that every film ends on an abrupt downer for the hero. Maybe these things hindered Bowers' popularity with audiences, but he deserves considerable credit for his imaginative storylines, eccentric gag and his meticulous craftsmanship in every aspect of his work.

The second disc has a short but sketchy bio along with two early cartoons by bowers and his last few talkies. These are all technically competent and fascinating, but the advent of sound didn't help him much. The best of the bunch is IT'S A BIRD which is hampered by clumsy, spoken jokes and an anti-climactic spoken punchline.

All quibbles aside--buy this disc if you love silent comedy!

Charley Bowers: the rediscovery of an American comic genius, is a two DVD set containing fifteen films made between 1917 and 1940. Bowers is largely forgotten now, but it is clear from these films that he had a great comic talent. In his silent shorts Bowers is generally a naïve inventor attempting to solve his problems by making weird and wonderful machines. Thus, for example, he builds a machine which makes unbreakable eggs; he builds shoes which will help him win a Charleston contest by dancing for him and solves a mice problem by growing cats from a tree. These films, made in the late twenties, are amazing for they showcase his talent for combining live-action with animation. It is this aspect of his films which gives Bowers his uniqueness and raises him far above the average. The interaction of Charley with the animated world is clever and imaginative. The special effects are usually convincing and must have been extremely difficult to achieve. What makes the trick photography really special however, is that Bowers uses it to express his bizarre ideas in a really funny way. Watching these films I found myself at times astonished, at times bewildered, but nearly always laughing out loud.

After the twenties Bowers made some live action sound films one of these, about a metal eating bird which eats scrap and lays eggs which hatch into cars, is the equal of his best silent films. Most of his later work however, is pure animation. These films are well made and often fairly funny, but seem somehow to be a waste of his talent. Like other silent comedians Bowers obviously found himself taking work where he could, even making at one point an advertising film for oil. Such films are still interesting but cannot compare to the best of his silent work.

Nearly all of the prints of the films on these DVDs were found in France. Most of these prints are good to very good. One shows signs of severe decomposition and at least two are incomplete. However, in general I was pleased with the quality of the prints. While they often have scratches and minor blemishes, the images are usually full of detail with sharp, bright photography. It is clear from a short French documentary, included as a bonus, that we are extremely fortunate that these films survive at all. That they look as good as they do is lucky indeed. Owing to the fact that these prints derive from France, the title cards are in French with English subtitles. It is a pity that new English titles have not been made. It is also unfortunate that two of the films lack scores, as watching a silent film in silence is a good reminder of how necessary scores are. The rest of the films have good, appropriate music. There is sometimes even a choice of scores. All of the music fits the mood and the action of the films well and adds greatly to the overall enjoyment. This two DVD set runs for nearly four hours and is great value. Charley Bowers is funny and inventive and well worth discovering.

When I first heard about this set, I thought, "Is that the fake guy from Peter Jackson's Forgotten Silver?" I had no idea who Charley Bowers was or that he truly was a comedian whose career spanned over a long period of time. Thanks to this set, classic film fans are able to peek into the career of a forgotten comedian who used some truly unusual techniques to make his audience laugh.

The first disk in this collection focuses on Bowers' appearances in film.
First is Egged On, a film with cute gags. The story is about a man who invents a machine that creates unbreakable eggs. However, the eggs are not turned to stone; the shell just simply refuses to break unless cut, in which case a regular inside is expelled. The machine is large and elaborate; the idea of using one to utilize stuttery animation is used in several Bowers shorts. At the end of the film, there is water on the camera which is a bit distracting.
He Done His Best is a scratched film featuring a machine and animation. The story revolves around a man going to ask his girlfriend's father for her hand in marriage. Instead, he gets roped into taking a job as a waiter in the father's restaurant. Bowers is reminiscent of Buster Keaton in this film because of his agility and lack of expression.
A Wild Roomer features an average print of a film about a man who wins and inheritance if his machine to do anything works. There is lots of animation in this film which becomes a bit tedious and many elaborate gags.
Fatal Footsteps is the story of a man who tries to learn to Charleston using placemat footprints in his room. However, this Charleston is like none that I've seen before. The gags are funny and more traditionally slapstick although some are used for too long. There is only a little bit of animation in this short, but it is fitting.
Now You Tell One is a good short to use animation in. It is about a club whose goal is to tell the best lie. There are animated elephants, hilarious mice, and cats.
Many A Slip is a film with a great music score. It is about Bowers' quest to make the no-slip banana peel. There is some animation used and a very strange ending.
Nothing Doing is the last short on disk one, a damaged print. It is about a man who wants to join the police force to win a girl. In the process, he thoroughly ruins the town with his comic ignorance.
All of the shorts on this disk are in French with English subtitles. A few of the shorts have two available scores.

Disk two features shorts in which animation was used a lot or in all of the film. This disk is the better of the two.
Grill Room Express is a cartoon short in black and white about a day in a restaurant. It is similar to the live action short He Done His Best. The drawings look similar to Popeye; they are cleanly drawn and fun to watch.
AWOL is another fully animated short about a man who goes AWOL from the military in order to gallivant around town with a beautiful woman. It is a fun and cute film.
Say Ah-h! is a film that was preserved in The Library of Congress. For this, it is a gorgeous, clear print when it is not irrevocably marred. It seems that the first half of the film is missing and two scenes of the film are badly deteriorated almost to the point of being unable to understand what it going on. There is also no sound for the film, although one can hear the actual projector's sound. It is a pretty funny film about a man who is ordered to give his employer untainted ostrich eggs. He feeds the ostrich a combination of household items like pillows and feather dusters and the egg hatches a cloth ostrich, the major animation in the film.
Its A Bird is a great talking film with animation, much more fluidly done than in the silents. It is similar to that done in The Incredible Mister Limpet although not in color. The animated bird has an annoying voice, but the rest is great. There are hilarious random practical jokes but a strange ending.
Believe it Or Not is a film done completely in animation. It shares a few similarities with other Bowers films like cars being hatched from eggs, also done in Egged On.
Pete Roeleum and His Cousin is a very very strange fully animated color film about the history of oil and how great it is. It is very long and tedious, seemingly only used to show off the animation.
Wild Oysters is a really funny story based on a trite plot reminiscent of the Marry Melodies cartoons of Warner Brothers: a family of mice tries to skirt the family cat to steal some food. It is purely animation.
A Sleepless Night is very similar to Wild Oysters; several of the jokes are re-used. It has no sound thought it was obviously meant to be a talkie. The film does not suffer from the lost soundtrack though, partially because Wild Oysters proceeds it in this collection. It too is a very funny fully animated short.
Looking For Charley Bowers is a short documentary that explains the finding of the Bowers films and who exactly this man was. It is great simply because he is such an obscure figure in comedy. The documentary is in French with English subtitles.

Overall, this collection certainly exposes a man with many ideas not really used in the mainstream. It is nice that his films were not left to completely deteriorate from consciousness forever although he certainly is no comic genius the way Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton are seen to be.

It just goes to show that when you think you've seen everything, something comes along to prove you wrong. Such is the case with CHARLEY BOWERS: THE REDISCOVERY OF AN AMERICAN GENIUS. I had heard of Bowers before as two of the offerings on this 2 DVD set have appeared elsewhere (NOW YOU TELL ONE is in the SLAPSTICK ENCYCLOPEDIA set and the cartoon A.W.O.L can be found in the Library of Congress' ORIGIN OF FILM collection) but I had no idea of the depth and breadth of the man's abilities. Bowers began as an animator around 1912 with a series of MUTT AND JEFF cartoons. One of them GRILL ROOM EXPRESS is in this collection. By the mid 20's he had moved into live comedy shorts looking like a cross between Buster Keaton and Harry Langdon with a little Larry Semon thrown in for good measure. He combined live action with stop motion animation and the most surreal series of puppet characters since the great Russian animator Ladislaw Starewicz.

With the coming of sound he cut back appearing in his own material and began animating for others. A good example of this is PETE ROLEUM AND HIS COUSINS done for the young Joseph Losey. Charley Bowers died in 1946 at the age of 57 after many years of poor health. While it is not unusual to for an artist to be forgotten during his lifetime or shortly after his death, it seems incomprehensible that Bowers could have been so completely forgotten considering the originality of his material. Part of it may be that none of his work was done for a major studio who would have kept better tabs on it. Whatever the reasons for his obscurity, I shall always be grateful to the French for his rediscovery and for this 2 DVD set

I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard or was so amazed as I was by some of these shorts especially EGGED ON and SAY AH-H! although they are all first rate. It seems a shame to have to criticize this set as we are lucky to have any of this material and so much of it in really good shape. However the lack of musical accompaniment for two of the shorts on Disc 2 is really unfortunate given the musical options offered on Disc 1 and could easily have been rectified. It also would have been nice if they could have reinstated the English intertitles (most of the shorts were discovered in France and so they are in French) and that is why I give this set 4 stars instead of 5. Nevertheless if you're a fan of silent comedy or are looking for something truly different, buy this right away and discover the surreal genius of Charley Bowers. You will be truly amazed.

A friend who despises silent films watched this and was amazed. He said, "I can't believe that they were doing those kind of special effects back then." That is how spectacular these films are. Charley Bowers should have been bigger than he was. Most silent film books don't even mention him. He deserved to be the fifth great american silent film comic, after Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and Langdon. Yes, he is THAT good. His special effects are wonderful (stop motion animation, speed altered film, reverse filming, etc.). His stories are as good as any of the great's shorts. His character was developed - he was usually the guy courting a girl and impressing her with his know-how and inventions. It is amazing that he was forgotten. It is wonderful to discover him; anyone who thinks they have seen all the silent movies worth seeing will find a treasure here.
Ok, it is time for a complete revival, including a star on the Hollywood walk of fame.

While wandering the local big box store's section of soulless, bland movie collections, this little gem caught my eye.

I have to ask, who the HECK allowed this to come out? Don't you dvd companies know that you aren't supposed to release anything this good? You are supposed to re-re-re-release knockoffs of other's people's low-quality dubs of badly-made copies of films that are public domain, not come out with as complete a collection as possible of an undeservedly forgotten comedy genius! What went wrong here?

Seriously, this is a great collection. My favories -

It's A Bird - seeing a Model T hatch from an egg is just amazing. Absolute genius filmmaking.

Believe it or Don't! - a really stupid film, but the scene of a lobster-animal playing xylophone and having the time of his life is possible the wierdest thing I've ever seen. It cracks me up every time.

Wild Oysters - Again, not the best film, but the ideas are so original that it's oddly compelling. Very wierd stuff.

And all of the silent films on disc 1 are great stuff.

I'm shocked that the quality of most of these is so good, and I'm also shocked that there's nothing better for some of the films.

Really, this is not for everybody. In fact, I think this is not for most. If you aren't sure that you will like this, PLEASE rent it first so that you can be sure. But if you like, say, City of Lost Children, then this is right up your alley.

In the 1920s a cartoonist named Charles K. Bowers produced and starred in a series of live-action comedy shorts that incorporated slapstick with puppet animation and trick camera effects. In remarkable efforts like EGGED ON, FATAL FOOTSTEPS, and NOW YOU TELL ONE (all from 1926), Model T cars are hatched from eggs, shoes dance without the aid of human feet, birds chew their way through metal, mice wield miniature pistols to protect themselves, and cats sprout from pussy willows.

While Bowers lacked a screen personality distinct enough to rival Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, his amazing visual inventiveness was in a class by itself. With the coming of sound, Bowers returned to the animation field; by the time he died in 1946, his comedies were long forgotten. In the late 1960s, French film archivist Raymond Borde mounted a campaign to preserve the movies and restore Bowers' reputation.

This fascinating collection contains nine Bowers comedy shorts (either in their entirety or fragmented form) plus some of his all-animated efforts; of the latter, WILD OYSTERS (1940) is especially noteworthy for its feisty title creatures. A bonus feature is the French documentary LOOKING FOR CHARLEY BOWERS, which details the comedian's career and the effort to locate and preserve surviving examples of his work.

This two-disc set is primarily aimed at film historians rather than the casual viewer, although Bowers' dazzling accomplishments can be appreciated by any audience.

In the documentary Looking for Charlie Bowers, film archaeologist Raymond Borde recollects buying a box of silent film reels marked "Bricolo" from a gypsy. Borde was unable to identify the films or the filmmaker, but found the films quite unique. The character in the Bricolo shorts was clearly patterned off of Keaton, but the gags were highly surreal, mixing animation with live action. The search for the identity of Bricolo took Borde to the Belgium Royal Film Library and the Annecy Animated Film Festival. Still, no one could identify the films. Borde searched the exhaustive reviews of "Midi Minuet Fantastique," which lead to a dead end. Finally, Borde discovered a 1928 reference to Charley Bowers as Bricolo in a "Meric Cinematographers" ad in Mareilles. From there Borden contacted Louise Beaudet of the Montreal Film Library. Beaudet knew Bowers as the animator of the "Mutt and Jeff" series. Together, Borde and Beudet contacted the Library of Congress and struck gold. With much material, including press releases and hundreds of photographs, they were able to positively identify Bowers as the Bricolo of the reels.

Bowers life story proves as fascinating as his films and the discovery of his films. Charley Bowers joined the circus as a tightrope walker at the age of five. From there he worked as a jockey, cowboy, horse trainer, theatrical performer and caricaturist for newspapers. In 1916 Bowers took on the role of producer, opened his own studio, and began producing a series of animated shorts with a small, ragtag team of animators. In 1924, Bowers began producing shorts which mixed live action with animation, casting himself as the lead. Bowers character was called Bricolo by French critics of the time. Bizarre animated objects and puppets were part of the animated sequences.

Borden discovered a late 1930s reference to Bowers by Surrealist Andre Breton. Breton had only seen Bowers' short "It's a Bird" as an introduction to a feature film. Breton was surprised by the film and listed it as an important surrealist film in "The Surrealist Almanac." Borden discovered that Breton's admiration for Bowers was shared by the avant-garde poet Rafael Alberti.

Bowers died, destitute and obscure, at the age of 57 in 1946, following a long illness. Although he made hundreds of animated short films, along with the live action shorts, only fifteen of his films survive. These were restored and distributed by Lobster Films in France. This indispensable collection of Bowers films is on the two-disc set Charley Bowers, The Rediscovery of an American Comic Genius.

Like all great surrealism, Bowers film are imaginatively and aesthetically provocative. Recurring obsessive themes permeate Bowers shorts. "Egged On" (1926) and "Say Ah-h!" (1928) both feature unbreakable eggs. In "Egged On" Charley is an inventor and has the great idea that unbreakable eggs will make him his fortune and allow him to marry his cousin (!). The Egg Shipping company is interested in his invention so his cousin lets him build his machine in daddy's barn. Charley builds a huge machine that looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss cartoon. The eggs come out rubbery, so the Egg Shipping Company comed out for a demonstration. Alas, Charley can't find any eggs; after a desperate search, he finally finds some. Charley lays the eggs on a Model T Ford which incubates them and out hatch baby Model Ts. This is slapstick surrealism at its maniacal best.

"Say Ah-h!" begins with Charley being chased by Cleo the Ostrich. Charley (looking a lot like Harry Langdon here) has stolen Cleo's egg, and he throws it to his famished employer, who cannot break it. Finally, a farm hand shoots the egg, ruining it. The farmhand orders Charley to produce another egg. Charley feeds Cleo cement mix. Cleo lays an egg. The egg escapes Charley's grasp and hatches a fully grown cyborg like ostrich. The hatchling wears pants, has a feather duster for a tail and eats everything in sight, including metal objects. The hatchling escapes, scares the hell out of everyone, dances the fox trot to a record and hatches a couple of eggs which produce more baby cyborg ostriches. The title indicates that the surviving reel of "Say Ah-h" is the second part; the first part is lost and the second half, presented here, is badly decomposed.

"It's a Bird" (1930) also features a metal-eating bird. This is only sound film that Bowers himself appears in. Charley is employed as a "breaker and a loser" at a junkyard. His job is to break up the cars and" lose" the pieces someplace. Charley's finding his job difficult when he runs out of places to "lose" the car parts, that is, until he hears of a metal eating bird. A local professor tells Charley how to find a metal eating bird, which you naturally find under a rock. The bird looks like a prototype of the dodo bird from a Porky Pig cartoon. A worm volunteers to help Charley capture the bird by getting himself painted up in metal paint. The trap works, and Charley takes the bird back to the junk yard, where it gorges on car parts. The bird lays and egg, and tries to eat its own egg. However, the egg hatches and out comes a Model T Ford. Charley has a great idea: "We will start our own car line!" The bird laughs, "I only lay one egg every hundred years." The ending is abrupt and surreal.

"He Done His Best" (1926): Charley is an inventor again, with ambitions to get married. His prospective father-in-law puts him to work in the restaurant he owns, but when his co-workers discover Charley is non-union, they all quit. This leaves Charley alone in the kitchen and he accidentally blows up the restaurant in his overworked zeal. To make amends, he rebuilds the restaurant and invents a machine that will do all the kitchen work, from cooking to washing dishes. This allows for all kinds of surreal stop-motion animation, of course. White-gloved mechanical arms slaughter chickens, cook them, bake cakes, open cans of carrots. The machine is a huge success, but Charley finds the guests he is serving are guests at the wedding of his girlfriend to another man, ending the film in a moment of pathos.

In "A Wild Roomer" Charley is an inventor yet again and stands to gain his late grandfather's inheritance if he can come up with an invention within 48 hours. If Charley fails, the money goes to Charley's uncle, who looks like a cross between the classic horror stars Karloff and Lugosi. Again, white gloved arms do all the work, although the purpose of the machine is not really clear, other than perhaps to pamper its owner. The arms make a doll, which comes to life. Amusingly, the doll is embarrassed to find itself naked (shades of Adam and Eve?) and so momma machine makes it a dress. The doll then has a romantic interlude with a squirrel, hops atop it and rides off. Uncle is trying to stop the invention process so that he alone can inherit all the money. Charlie drives the 8 foot high machine (looking even more like Dr. Seuss invention) out into the streets and, naturally, havoc follows. As inventive as the films are, Bowers inability to capture a wider audience is by now quite clear. Bowers was so invested in the animated, surreal gags, that he neglected to develop his own on-screen Bricolo persona in an identifiable way, like Chaplin, Keaton and Langdon did.

In "Now You Tell One" the Liars Club is having an annual get together. One member tells of elephants on the Capitol building, and the stop-motion animation for this looks like something akin to Ray Harryhausen to come. However, the lies lack imagination, so a senior member goes out in search for a great liar. He finds Charley trying to blow his head off in a cannon. Charley is taken back to the club. He is introduced as Bricolo, so great a liar that even the King of the Gullible would never believe him. Charley tells the club how he invented a potion that will graft together any two objects and make them grow. Pineapples and apples grow into a combined plant, as do cucumbers and squash, straws change into a hat, seeds into shoelaces, and the handle of a wheel barrel grows a Christmas tree. Charley happens upon a pretty girl with cute legs who is stressed out over a huge problem with mice. Charley grows her some cats, but like the sorcerer's apprentice, the magic gets away from him and soon her house is overrun with cats.

In "Many A Slip" (1927) Charley is trying to invent the no-slip banana peel. He finds there is a slipping germ which causes banana peels to be slippery. Another machine and additional chaos.

The rest of the films in this collection are lesser entries. These include some live action animated shorts, purely animated shorts, and stop-animation shorts. Oddly enough, Bowers greatest film is possibly "There It Is" (1928), which was not included on this set, but has to be purchased separately within the "More Treasures from the American Film Archives" (which you will probably have to take out a second mortgage just to purchase). Of course, there had to be a snag, and even Bowers posthumous legacy is at the mercy of 21st century marketing strategies that try to squeeze every penny of out collectors. That complaint aside, Charley Bowers, The Rediscovery of an American Comic Genius is a "desert island" collection.

* My REVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT 366 WEIRD MOVIES