Max Wants a Divorce

After Charlie Chaplin left Essannay, they needed a new comedy superstar and who but Max Linder, who had been France's leading comedy movie star -- and the world's -- for ten years? So Max left Paris and came to Chicago. Here in Max's second American film, we can see him adapting his style from the realistic French style to a more American style.

The plot is simple and the complications amusing: Max stands to inherit seven million dollars if he is not married. So he tells his bride they have to get a divorce until the money comes through. In order to get a divorce, though, they need a cause, so Max arranges an assignation and for a private detective to show up. In the meantime, the apartment he has taken is at the back of an insane asylum and his wife disguises herself as the maid in order to make sure no funny business really takes place....

The entire situation is far more slapstick than Max usually indulged in, but he is certainly up to the task, behaving just as Charley Chase would a decade later in his great series for Roach. Plus Max manages to insert a few beautiful shots, including a lovely silhouette. If the series was not as successful as had been hoped, this is still a fine two-reeler.