User reviews

Arthur Houseman is credited as the writer of this split-reel comedy from Edison about a man with a toothache, but it's not him in the lead; it's Frank A. Lyons. I believe Mr. Houseman plays one of the younger clerks at Lyons' office.

In this comedy, Mr. Lyons has a toothache. Every time he goes to the dentist, suddenly it stops hurting, so he leaves, but then it hurts again. People recommend various folk remedies and quack nostrums. None work.

It's not comic in the modern sense of funny, although watching a fat man suffer is always a sure-fire and moral way to get an audience laughing. Someone does propose tying a string around the tooth and a door handle, which is something I've only seen in cartoons, but they don't carry through with it.

Edison's "comedies" were weak in this period, even by non-slapstick standards. This one does not raise their average.

A farce by Arthur Houseman that pleased the audience. We think that much more could have been gotten out of it. It exists for the unexpected way in which Toots gets rid of the offending molar. Every time he got near the dentist's it got better temporarily. Everybody advised him with no good results until the office force got the tooth tied to a string with a heavy book at the other end. Toots didn't dare have the book thrown out of the window, but, getting mad, throws it at the boys with a happy result. We can say that it made the spectators laugh. The subtitles are a help to it. - The Moving Picture World, October 18, 1913