Product Details

• Actors: William Hauber, Helen Holmes, Hank Mann, Mabel Normand, Barney Oldfield
• Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Kino Video
• VHS Release Date: June 27, 2000
• Run Time: 121 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304925794
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #376,650 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Though he seldom appeared in front of the cameras, Mack Sennett is one of the best-known names in slapstick cinema. His influence as a producer and director at the keystone Studios refined the comedic art form and launched the big-screen careers of Chaplin, Arbuckle, Langdon, the Keystone Kops and numerous others. This volume of Slapstick Encyclopedia presents a sampling of rare treats from Sennett's incubator of comic insanity, and offers a composite image of the "Sennett style."

Before he became famous for grass-roots all-American dramas, Frank Capra was a writer of comedy shorts at Keystone, including Saturday Afternoon (starring the baby-faced Harry Langdon). Capra argued for understatement while making Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies (1925), telling his actors, "Don't burst a blood vessel at the beginning of a situation, save it for the iris." But in director Del Lord's Halloween climax, blood vessels are burst in the usual Sennett style. Lord, who later directed numerous Three Stooges shorts, also helmed Wandering Willies (1926), which climaxes in one of the action finales Keystone was famous for, combining speeding cars, oiled roads and a whole string of Kops.

Exemplifying the irreverence that made slapstick so sensational, A Movie Star (1916) satirizes the still-new star system, the age-old actor's ego and the nickelodeon theater of the then-recent past. The Sennett brand of burlesque is likewise evidenced in Barney Oldfield's Race For A Life (1913), an ahead-of-its-time film that pokes fun at the stereotypes of Victorian melodrama which were the foundation of D. W. Griffith's works. various directors. U.S. 1913-26. Total time: 121 mins. B&W. Music by Brian Benison, Michael Holland, Robert Israel, Donald Sosin.

Contents:
Saturday Afternoon (1926 - Harry Langdon)
Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies (1925 - Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde)
Wandering Willies (1926 - Billy Bevan, The Keystone Kops)
A Muddy Romance (1913 - The Keystone Kops, Mabel Normand)
A Movie Star (1916 - Mack Swain, Harry McCoy)
Barney Oldfield's Race For A Life (1913 - Mabel Normand, Mack Sennett, Ford Sterling)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great prints - But not complete, May 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Slapstick Encyclopedia, Vol. 2 - Keystone Tonight!: The Mack Sennett Comedies [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The prints are some of the best I've seen - But the biggest disapointment is the lack of the original beginning and closing titles. Plus the music for some of the films are not the greatest. I wish the producers would have presented the material as complete. Great idea - needed more follow through. The same problem with all the other titles in the series...

4.0 out of 5 stars Madcap Mack Sennett, September 6, 2008

By 

Annie Van Auken (Planet Earth) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Slapstick Encyclopedia, Vol. 2 - Keystone Tonight!: The Mack Sennett Comedies [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The six shorts on volume #2 of KINO's SLAPSTICK ENCYCLOPEDIA were all produced at Mack Sennett's Keystone laugh factory.

SYNOPSES--

SATURDAY AFTERNOON-- Harry Langdon's "Little Elf" usually goes home from the steel plant to an overbearing wife. This Saturday afternoon however, his friend Steve Smith (Vernon Dent) convinces Harry to sneak away and join him for some fun with a couple of cuties.

SUPER-HOOPER-DYNE LIZZIES-- Scripted by radio-hobbyist Frank Capra and directed by Del Lord (of later 3 Stooges fame). Burbank Watts (Clyde) invents a device that can remotely control any radio-equipped cars. His assistant, Hiram Case (Bevan) runs out of gas and pushes his car, inadvertantly becoming the caboose to a line of seven parked autos. He labors up a hill and shoves the seven over a cliff. Later, Watts throws a party; nightwatchman Hiram falls asleep while guarding the lab. An oil merchant and cohort break in, looking to smash the inventor's transmitterbut the creepily-costumed partyers scare them off.

WANDERING WILLIES-- Also helmed by Sennett's favorite director, Del Lord. Bevan and Clyde are a vagrant and an escaped convict. Clyde tricks a cop into disrobing; Bevan steals and dons his uniform. With Clyde hiding in a baby carriage, the two enter a diner. The secreted Clyde steals plates of food and lit cigars. Bevan does the oyster stew routine later copied exactly by Lou Costello. The two cadgers are caught and compelled to work off their bill. The film climaxes with one of the craziest car chases ever.

A MUDDY ROMANCE-- The real-life drainage of Echo Lake prompted this ad-libbed slapstick classic. The Keystone Kops and three civilians get mired in the bed of the freshly drained lake.

A MOVIE STAR-- Film stardom was still a novelty when this spoof was committed to celluloid. Egotist Mack Swain mingles with the public at a nickelodeon-opening of his latest western, "Big Hearted Jack," wherein Swain's obese cowboy hero rescues Nell from the Injuns and wins her from his rival. When the movie ends, Swain's adoring fans follow the flirtatious ham out of the theater, where he's met by an angry umbrella-wielding missus wth two kiddies in tow.

BARNEY OLDFIELD'S RACE FOR A LIFE-- Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand are sweethearts. Ford Sterling is the mustachioed villain intent on winning Mabel's love. When she spurns him, Ford gets his two thugs to chain Mabel to the RR tracks, then the three hijack an engine to finish her off. Mack enlists racecar driver Oldfield's aid and they speed away to save Mabel, in a tightly-edited, split-second sequence quite complex for 1913.


Volume #3 of KINO's SLAPSTICK ENCYCLOPEDIA showcases actresses in some unusual roles.


Parenthetical numbers preceding titles are 1 to 10 viewer poll ratings found at a film resource website.

(6.2) Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life (1913) - Mack Sennett/Mabel Normand/Ford Sterling/Hank Mann/Barney Oldfield/Al St. John/Helen Holmes/Raymond Hatton/William Hauber
(6.0) A Movie Star (1916) - Mack Swain/Louella Maxam/Mai Wells/Ray Grey/Phyllis Allen/Harry McCoy/Louise Fazenda
(4.6) A Muddy Romance (1913) - Mabel Normand/Ford Sterling/Mack Swain/Charles Avery/William Hauber
(6.8) Saturday Afternoon (1926) - Harry Langdon/Alice Ward/Vernon Dent/Ruth Hiatt/Peggy Montgomery
(6.1) Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies (1925) - Billy Bevan/Andy Clyde/Lillian Knight/John J. Richardson/Vernon Dent/Andre Bailey/Thelma Hill/Leo Sulky
(6.2) Wandering Willies (1926) - Billy Bevan/Andy Clyde/Ruth Hiatt/Billy Gilbert/'Kewpie' Morgan/Leo Sulky

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, January 31, 2006

By 

Filmfan (Denmark) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Slapstick Encyclopedia, Vol. 2 - Keystone Tonight!: The Mack Sennett Comedies [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I have seen all of this video, except for the last comedy on the tape: "Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life." Very unfunny stuff, I'm sorry to say -I do like slapstick comedy, but this collection didn't do anything for me. (I have also bought the DVD set called "Slapstick Encyclopedia," - these volume 2 comedies are on the DVD set, too - so I haven't given up.)