Like my fellow-reviewers, I've only seen a few excerpts from BE MY WIFE, as that's the only available material from the film, the second feature-length film French comedian Max Linder made in Hollywood. That being said, I'd like to second the opinion that this little sequence works perfectly well as a movie in its own right. Here, Max enters as the incurable dandy he always remained on the screen, very much in love with his sweetheart; the girl's aunt, on the other hand, is not very enthusiastic about him and wants her niece to marry another man. The reason for this is not made clear in the little excerpt, but Max is determined to become the husband of the girl and uses his wonderful imagination in order to succeed. He fools the aunt and the other man as well as the girl when he pretends that a burglar is hiding behind a curtain inside the house. He then improvises a wonderful sequence where it appears as if he manages to beat the villain and throw him out, and thus convinces his sweetheart's aunt that the girl is worthy of him. A few years later, Harold Lloyd and Charley Chase --two other slapstick masters who stand as far famous than Linder today-- would perform sequences very similar to this one, Lloyd in DR. JACK (1922) and Chase in MIGHTY LIKE A MOOSE (1926). As with the "mirror routine" in SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK, Linder's version probably remains my favorite, although the other variations were very good as well.
To answer my fellow-reviewer William Morrow's question whether the rest of BE MY WIFE survives today, I'm happy to tell that more material from the film (if not the entire print) survives; a few more excerpts may be found in Maud Linder's documentary THE MAN IN THE SILK HAT. Hopefully, one day the genius of Max Linder will be recognized, and more from BE MY WIFE, and more of Linder's work, will be included in the big DVD-box he deserves.
UPDATE (2014)--I have finally been able to watch what appears to be the entire, one-hour long version of BE MY WIFE, and must sadly confess that I found the film in its entirety to be a disappointment. It turns out that the aforementioned, 13-minute excerpt is actually the first reel of the film, and this part still works wonderfully, of course. However, what follows is a series of situations which are not, in my opinion, executed very satisfactorily in the context of a feature-length film. Max Linder's own performance is the thing here that makes it worth watching; I am always intrigued by what an accomplished, expressive pantomimist he truly is. However, all of the characters are completely devoid of depth; granted, all of the silent comedians tended to treat their leading ladies as vessels in their stories, to a degree, but Linder's new wife Mary is hardly even established as a character in the story. The climax should be suspenseful enough, with Linder's wife doing revenge on her husband as she believes he has cheated on her, but as we have been given no opportunity to get to know these characters earlier in the film, one doesn't really care how it turns out. The cartoon-like treatment of characters would not matter so much if the situations and gags made up for it, but other than the first reel, most of the action also tend to drag a whole lot, without really going anywhere. The problem may have been that Linder here performs material too reminiscent of what he had done in short films in France ten years earlier; in the context of a ten-minute Pathé short, much of this stuff would very possibly have worked well, but feature-length films is a very different kind of animal. Granted, slapstick comedy films approaching an hour in length was still fairly new territory in 1921, and I am happy to say that Linder's other two American features, SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK and THE THREE MUST-GET-THERE, work far better.
To answer my fellow-reviewer William Morrow's question whether the rest of BE MY WIFE survives today, I'm happy to tell that more material from the film (if not the entire print) survives; a few more excerpts may be found in Maud Linder's documentary THE MAN IN THE SILK HAT. Hopefully, one day the genius of Max Linder will be recognized, and more from BE MY WIFE, and more of Linder's work, will be included in the big DVD-box he deserves.
UPDATE (2014)--I have finally been able to watch what appears to be the entire, one-hour long version of BE MY WIFE, and must sadly confess that I found the film in its entirety to be a disappointment. It turns out that the aforementioned, 13-minute excerpt is actually the first reel of the film, and this part still works wonderfully, of course. However, what follows is a series of situations which are not, in my opinion, executed very satisfactorily in the context of a feature-length film. Max Linder's own performance is the thing here that makes it worth watching; I am always intrigued by what an accomplished, expressive pantomimist he truly is. However, all of the characters are completely devoid of depth; granted, all of the silent comedians tended to treat their leading ladies as vessels in their stories, to a degree, but Linder's new wife Mary is hardly even established as a character in the story. The climax should be suspenseful enough, with Linder's wife doing revenge on her husband as she believes he has cheated on her, but as we have been given no opportunity to get to know these characters earlier in the film, one doesn't really care how it turns out. The cartoon-like treatment of characters would not matter so much if the situations and gags made up for it, but other than the first reel, most of the action also tend to drag a whole lot, without really going anywhere. The problem may have been that Linder here performs material too reminiscent of what he had done in short films in France ten years earlier; in the context of a ten-minute Pathé short, much of this stuff would very possibly have worked well, but feature-length films is a very different kind of animal. Granted, slapstick comedy films approaching an hour in length was still fairly new territory in 1921, and I am happy to say that Linder's other two American features, SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK and THE THREE MUST-GET-THERE, work far better.