***SPOILERS - IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET, THOUGH, YOU PROBABLY AREN'T READING THIS***
A pleasant little film from crosseyed Ben Turpin. The tape I have with this movie on it contains several other Turpin movies, and from watching them, I believe the reason he didn't achieve the fame of the great silent comics was because he never really solidified his character. He plays a thief, a milquetoast, a masher, a victim...other than his crossed eyes, there was nothing you could look at in his performances and say 'This is Ben Turpin'.
Not that Turpin didn't make some funny films, mind you. In this particular outing, he plays a janitor whose engineer associate has made a mechanical man who looks just like Ben. Of course, the mistake in identity is made, and Turpin spends the better part of the movie pretending to be a mechanical dummy. This is good work; understanding, as a viewer, that no human can totally mimic a machine (i.e. when thrown over someone's shoulder, a real person's arms and legs WILL flex to a certain extent), you can get some good laughs out of these sequences. Ben fails to elicit a whole lot of sympathy, however, for his crush on the engineer's girlfriend. His act of deception in order to get more attention from her is what leads to his playing the mechanical man, and a blatant act of thievery leads to his unmasking and downfall.
A fun film; much better-constructed than a lot of Sennett's work. Relies on plot AND slapstick to sell the humor.
A pleasant little film from crosseyed Ben Turpin. The tape I have with this movie on it contains several other Turpin movies, and from watching them, I believe the reason he didn't achieve the fame of the great silent comics was because he never really solidified his character. He plays a thief, a milquetoast, a masher, a victim...other than his crossed eyes, there was nothing you could look at in his performances and say 'This is Ben Turpin'.
Not that Turpin didn't make some funny films, mind you. In this particular outing, he plays a janitor whose engineer associate has made a mechanical man who looks just like Ben. Of course, the mistake in identity is made, and Turpin spends the better part of the movie pretending to be a mechanical dummy. This is good work; understanding, as a viewer, that no human can totally mimic a machine (i.e. when thrown over someone's shoulder, a real person's arms and legs WILL flex to a certain extent), you can get some good laughs out of these sequences. Ben fails to elicit a whole lot of sympathy, however, for his crush on the engineer's girlfriend. His act of deception in order to get more attention from her is what leads to his playing the mechanical man, and a blatant act of thievery leads to his unmasking and downfall.
A fun film; much better-constructed than a lot of Sennett's work. Relies on plot AND slapstick to sell the humor.