The Surf Girl

The Surf Girl (1916)

** (out of 4)

This Keystone comedy is about as wild and crazy as you can get but I'd say fans are going to be split on whether or not they like it. The story pretty much takes place at a pool where all sorts of people cause trouble, fights and various other bits of mischief. You've got an angry father whose daughter is out flirting with men. You've got an obese man who wants to go down a water slide. You've also got lifeguards doing more than just watching people. THE SURF GIRL pretty much features typical Keystone madness and there's no doubt in my mind that some people are really going to enjoy it. There's no doubt that this film is going a mile a minute because there are non-stop jokes right from the start and they never slow down. You see the obese man going down the slide, which causes everyone in the pool to be thrown out and we immediately jump to a scene where a man with a long beard gets it caught on fire. If you slow down to think about anything going on then you'll notice that none of it makes any sense but I'm sure Mack Sennett felt that if he kept everything moving no one would stop to think. The problem for me is that none of it really struck me as being funny. While I enjoyed the fast nature of the film, it still needed to bring the laughs and I just thought these were missing.