The Gusher

Keystone had been in California for almost a year before Sennett shot a one-reeler set in the oil fields. Mabel and Ford Sterling will get married as soon as he is an oil king, so when Charles Inslee dumps some crude oil on the mud he owns, he quickly gets Ford to borrow money to buy the dud well. When Inslee goes after Mabel, Ford hits him with a pipe, which falls to the ground, and triggers a the titular gusher. But even as the lovers are wed, Inslee will have his revenge!

This is one of those Keystone shorts shot on location to take advantage of local conditions, including lots of mud for Sterling and the Keystone Kops (including Sennett, Mack Swain, and Edgar Kennedy) to fall down in, and an oil well fire. Like most of the early "stolen shot" shorts, like A MUDDY ROMANCE and COHEN SAVES THE FLAG, it's improvised and rough, the stereotype of what most people think of as Keystone comedies.

In which Ford Sterling goes into the oil business and gets hold of a planted proposition. A good burlesque offering, winding up with a big fire in the oil districts. A pleasing number. - The Moving Picture World, December 13, 1913

The two-reel short, "The Gusher", is one of 64 short comedy films Mabel Normand cranked out in 1913. This frantic pace of comic filmmaking, along with the constant injuries before the days of stuntmen, is among the reasons that so many of the early silent comics had substance abuse problems - they were pretty much all dealing with working constantly and while injured. The short itself is a good example of Keystone comedy in the teens - lots of pants-kicking comedy, and of course the Keystone cops show up at the end to make a bad situation worse. The film is about Mabel Normand choosing one beau over another and the rejected beau attempting to cheat the winner out of his money by selling him an alleged "gusher" of an oil well.

Six stars. My son has seen a bunch of Keaton and Chaplin, but not much Sennett. For me, the draw here, other than Sennett, is Mabel Normand. I've seen her before, in some shorts with Chaplin and the Keystone Cops, and already knew she was a great comic actor who could also pull off subtlety. She doesn't disappoint here. The Gusher is a classic Cops one-reeler. Incoherent and silly, but full of the sort of slapstick gags that make the Cops funny to this day. Other than that, the film isn't much to write home about. But it entertains. And Normand is worth a look, if you've never heard of her before. 16 November 2020.