This is an early 1 reel(about 10 minutes silent speed 16-18 fps)Sennett classic. If you've ever studied pioneer silent American cinema chances are you've run into this film or have more than once glanced it's title. As mentioned by someone previously, Sennett had started out working with D.W. Griffith at Biograph Studios shooting films in N.Y. & New Jersey. The Curtain Pole(1909) is an early Sennett role of which Griffith directed and it foreshadows the mayhem type of comedy that Sennett would indulge in when he started Keystone in 1912. BORfaL is important in that it shows Sennetts knockabout comedy style before he adapted fast-motion photography to accentuate his stories. It is very much a knockabout albeit directed by Sennett with a lot of Griffithian influence. No trick camera photography to speed up the action.
<<This speeded up action in Keystone comedies would later be created by accident by Fred Jackman in 1914, one of Sennett's cameramen & a well known silent era action cameraman in the 20s. Jackman had actually made a mistake in his camera-work but when Sennett viewed the rushes & saw the frenetic pace at which the actors moved he decided that it added to the comedy and kept the technique. The rest as they say is history.>>
But let's face it, Griffith was LOUSY & old fashioned at comedy and Sennett very much understood slapstick as it pertained to the visual medium of the silent screen. The plot to BORfaL had been played out numerous times in Broadway plays & traveling Road Shows. Usually the characters in these simple stories were: Good Guy, Villain, Damsel in Distress. So, by 1912 1913 these themes were, as has been mentioned, old fashioned but STILL well loved by 19th Century 'Gaslight Era' adult audiences. Sennett plays the hero himself, the legendary Mabel Normand his damsel and Ford Sterling rounds out the cast as villain. Barney Oldfield, America's first really famous car racer makes what appears to be and 'extended cameo'. More or less Oldfield at the time happened to be in the Glendale area where this picture was shot and Sennett incorporated him into the story. Realizing the selling point of Oldfield's name Sennett simply titled the one reeler 'Barney Oldfield's Race For A Life'. Simple enough. Oldfield with Sennett aboard simply drives one of his racing cars to the rescue of 'poor' Mabel. She having been chained to the railroad tracks by the evil Ford Sterling after having refused Sterling's affection in favor of her yokel boyfriend Mack. This is the climax of the film this long drive by Oldfield & Sennett and Sennett in setting this scene up shows his lessons from Griffith quite well. It is an almost extended well done traveling shot almost never found in dramas(except maybe a few early Griffiths) of the period but found rampantly in short comedies. Another aspect of this film is how much of the southern California landscape is barren. Much of the land had not been gobbled up by greedy real estate people and this was one of the reasons the east coast film people moved west in the first place. Two of the gags with villain Sterling are outstanding for the time. I won't give them away but one is : with the train as he and his henchmen capture Mabel, the other is the last gag on the handcart with the Keystone Kops. Two gem sequences. Fans of this film will know what I'm talking about. Id highly recommend this for the whole family. It's something surely different from the same old. It's a trip into Yesteryear but try it & maybe a few other early Sennetts as so many are now available on home video in one form or another.
