Distilled Love

Alice Howell is the simple milkmaid in love with color-blind artist Dick Smith (they were married in real life) and Oliver Hardy is the bootlegger who lures her to the wicked city to be a gypsy dancer on the street. First, however, there must be farm animal jokes and Hardy's old girlfriend will give Alice her baby ("You have his love now. You can have his child").

There are gags and pulled faces aplenty in this funny but chaotic comedy. Miss Howell is very funny, with her weird hair, pigeon-toed walk and idiotic acceptance of every situation. Part of the chaos is due to mockery of the dying Melodrama and its tropes. Part, I believe, is due to the copy being pulled together from two partial prints.

Miss Howell was a show-biz trouper who decided to go into the movies while she was resting in Los Angeles between vaudeville tours. Within a couple of years, she was a favorite at Sennet. Within a couple of more she was pulling down more money from L-KO, then Century. Then, she retired. It is said that when she started earning more from her real estate investments (where she had been socking away a lot of her movie salary) than acting, she quit to deal with investments and family.