The Show

Here is a Semon comedy that reveals most of the problems with his work: the gags are well executed, but without much flair and with no logic in their set-up.

Semon works backstage in a theater where open jars of nitroglycerin are left sitting about for animals in a magician's acts to drink from; where open barrels of lamp black are stored so that wind machines, turned on for no particular reason, can spew their contents onto the audience, who continue to watch the show, unconcernedly wearing blackface; where stage managers carry about guns so they can rob performers of their jewels --which performers, of course, bring with them to the theater, seemingly for that very purpose.

The whole thing develops into a fair but derivative Max Sennett cops-and-railroad chase in which excellent stuntwork is executed, until the train runs into a rail car full of dynamite, which is left standing, as rail cars full of dynamite always are, on the main track; and the whole thing is "explained" by reducing the chase to a dream sequence. Semon performs his pratfalls and daredevil feats competently, and Oliver Hardy is stuck with his usual thankless role of heavy. The movie, however, is not about Hardy, as its other reviewer would have us believe, but Semon.

Oh. I said that this movie shows most of the problems with Semon's work. The other problem seems to be that he repeated the same gags from movie to movie. Not too awful an experience if you've never seen one before, but to an audience that sees the same gags executed by the same comic in the same sense-free environment every two months.... well, if you're seen one, you've seen 'em all, I suppose.

This is definitely a "lesser known" comedy short from the 1920s. The only reason I saw it was because it was on a DVD by Kino Films featuring non-Laurel and Hardy shorts featuring Ollie. They are interesting and historically important, but also generally average to below average for the style film. Compared to shorts by Chaplin, Keaton, Arbuckle and Lloyd, they are definitely a step below them in quality and humor. Also, the accompanying music was pretty poor by the standards of other silent DVDs. I ended up turning OFF the sound due to the inappropriateness of the music to set the proper mood. But, despite this, they are still worth seeing.

This film is about a stage show and at times it can be pretty funny, while at others it's very contrived and dumb. You just have to suspend disbelief, otherwise you'll drive yourself crazy trying to understand and accept the impossible events. For example, in the theater, an obnoxious family has a picnic up in the balcony. They take out a giant pail labeled "Jam" (who brings giant buckets of jam to the theater AND who puts jam into a giant pail anyway). When this obvious prop falls on someone down below, it just is pretty dumb. Then, later a chicken runs around projectile vomiting on everyone (???). This same chicken then finds a pail of nitroglycerin sitting around the theater (huh,...Nitroglycerine in a theater??). It eats in and then projectile vomits onto things that in turn blow up. Talk about contrived!! However, if you ignore these really lousy bits, there are great scenes as well. The final minutes of the film are an obligatory chase sequence and WOW was it done well. It's incredibly choreographed, fast and has some amazing crashes. It's worth seeing the movie just for the last 8-10 minutes alone! So, if you find this short, try watching it if you want to see something different. If you are new to silent shorts, though, try something higher quality first!