Purely Circumstantial

A long time fan of Lupino Lane's silent comedy shorts, this is the first and to date only sound short of his I have seen. While it was good, it just wasn't as funny as his silent shorts. Lane could do pratfalls with the best of them which he exhibits in this short but other than that he shows little of his earlier amazing athletic ability. In this story, he and his new wife Phyllis are honeymooning in a fancy hotel. Phyllis tells Lupino that "Mother's going to drop dead when she hears we're married." to which he replies "Maybe you should phone her right away." The bellhops trying to con Lupino were more annoying than funny although the bit about walking an imaginary dog was mildly amusing. I'll certainly watch this again as it has enough humor but just isn't as good as most of his silent shorts.

Lupino Lane was one of the great comedy stars of the late silent era. Between 1926 and 1928, he made many excellent comedy shorts distributed by Educational Pictures, shorts built around his amazing acrobatic skills. The man seems to have been made of elastic or rubber! My children are amazed when they see this kind of film which contains no special effects--just clever editing, amazing acrobatic stunts, and the occasional elastic appendage or body dummy. Lane did not continue making very many shorts in the sound era--I have only seen this one from 1929, yet surprisingly it is almost as good as his best silent shorts, and it's still primarily visual. In this one, Lane (whose voice fits his persona perfectly!) is a newlywed about to start his honeymoon, but one thing after another goes wrong, his wife's brother isn't happy about things, and there are a few annoying hotel employees who manage to mix everything up. The first minute or two, as Lane runs into a few other customers while trying to register at the hotel desk, are a good sign of what is to come--everything Lane does goes wrong, and it goes wrong in many different ways. If, for instance, he takes a pen from the desk--it won't write, then he'll poke someone with it, then it will squirt ink, then he'll blind someone with the ink, then the chain on which it was attached will spin around, then the chain will get wrapped around someone's neck, etc. That's a made-up example, but that's how he works. The way he complete milks EVERY possible permutation of a situation is amazing. I'm reminded of the scene in the "waxed room" from Jerry Lewis's CRACKING UP (although I don't know if Lane was an influence on Lewis). Lane went back to the UK soon after the coming of sound, but based on this short he could easily have continued making his films. This is much more fluid than most early-sound shorts. My copy is from a TV print with new opening credits, but the original "Lupino Lane Talking Comedies" card survives at the end of the short. Lovers of physical comedy should seek out ANY Lupino Lane comedy shorts. This one is special because it shows that he was just as good in the sound era as in the silent.