The Tennis Wizard

Another decent entry in the Van Bibber series as Earle Foxe buys his girl a locket and proceeds to lose it down the back of a woman's dress atop a double decker bus. He then winds up having to compete on the tennis court for the hand of the young lady.

The short comedies that Fox turned out were well written, directed (even if the director of this one was Dull by name) and carefully constructed comedy shorts intended to fill out the program. In terms of plot and character they are a bit better than the Christie comedies of the period, but in terms of their gag construction they are almost identical: there is no build-up to any particular gag. Indeed, for my taste, rather than being a story peppered with gags or a series of gags held together by a plot, this bestrides an unhappy middle ground. However, I can see some technical charm in this sort of work and you might get more fun out of it than I.