Troubles of a Grass Widower

This early slapstick comedy gets good mileage out of a fairly simple situation, and is amusing to watch. Max Linder carries most of the feature as a husband who is left to fend for himself while his wife is away. It pokes a lot of fun at his inability to handle simple domestic chores in the kitchen, at the market, and so forth. Perhaps the funniest sequences are of him washing the dishes and trying to cook dinner. It might carry the gag a bit longer than needed, but most of it works well. For its time, the slapstick is of good quality, and it's worth a look for anyone who enjoys comedies of the early silent era.

A man is reading the paper at breakfast and ignoring his wife. When she tries to get him to pay attention, he starts an argument and she stops out--going home to momma. He is far from sad, and begins to dance a sarcastic jig! But the last laugh is on him when he tries to do all the many jobs his wife had to do to keep house and he finally begs her to return.

For 1908, this is a very good comedy and it starred the first big film comedian, Max Linder. Chaplin and many of the later comics praised Linder's brilliance and give him credit for much of their work, but today it's darn near impossible to find any of his films. I've seen about a half dozen and that might be almost all that remains due to old nitrate film's habit of disintegrating or exploding. Additionally, the number of films he made isn't as many as some of the later comics because Linder killed himself when he was quite young. Both of these factors would explain why very few people would recognize his name today.

Now back to the film. The comedy is decent enough but because of when it was made, the writing and acting seems pretty broad and extremely simplistic. However, considering that few films of 1908 are watchable today, the fact that this one is still interesting is a tribute to Linder.

Max Linder gets into an argument with his wife. She leaves him. Max is at first thrilled with his new freedom. But then he fails at various domestic tasks and decides single life's not all it's cracked up to be.

This situation's been played a gazillion times by now, and--to me, at least--it's not that funny any more--and it's actually kind of insidious in that it's all about reinforcing the status quo and keeping women in the kitchen and men in control and like that. George W. Bush would maybe get a chuckle.

But this film's worth watching for Max Linder. It's interesting to see the little mannerisms that were later picked up by Charlie Chaplin, and I even saw (or imagined) a little bit of Harold Lloyd. However, people without an interest in film history probably wouldn't find much raw entertainment value in this.

According to IMDb, Max Linder made another movie in 1912 with the same English title as this one, Troubles of a Grasswidower (Max reprend sa liberté) in 1912. A remake?

6.5/10

This short is featured as one of the 8 films in the last volume of Kino's DVD collection, called "Comedy, Spectacle, and New Horizons." All of the 8 features in that volume are films that began to influence the modern day cinema, including stars like Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin.

For 1908 this is good comedy, and already there's a touch of slapstick that Chaplin was well known for. In it, a man fights with his wife so she goes back home to her mother. Our hero is overjoyed, but then realizes that housework is not that easy. By the next day he is fed up, cooking dinner and searching madly for his tie. In the midst of the chaos his wife appears and forgives him, ending the film.

While not a lot of plot for a 10 minute silent, it's still amusing to watch the disasters the widower encounters, including making dinner, going to bed, etc. While none of it had me laughing it's slightly amusing and very good for 1908. I must admit I've not seen any other Max Linder movies besides this, so maybe I'll have to check out some other films of his.

This is a hysterically funny film, if somewhat misandrist. Our hero is trying to read his newspaper after dinner. His wife insists that he put down the newspaper and pay attention to her. He ignores her. Finally, she angrily and violently snatches the newspaper out of his hands. Many male victims of domestic violence could readily recognize this scenario, which often escalates into her striking him. But, this is a light comedy. He demands she hand back the paper. She reluctantly does so. She starts crying and fed up with her behaviour he puts his fingers in his ears. This upsets her to the point that she leaves in a huff.

Overjoyed at his male independence, he does a little dance to celebrate it. This is one of the funniest scenes in the movie.

But his joy is short-lived. He attempts to manage the household by himself and ends up turning it into a chaotic mess. In the midst of this his wife returns accompanied by her mother.

The idea that men are helpless without women is the bit of misandry in the film. Many modern television sitcoms revisit this tiresome and bigoted theme over and over again. This alone, to me, makes the feminists' claims that women have overwhelmingly been portrayed in the mass media as the weaker gender completely without substantiation. On the contrary, it is men, who have a long way to go before shedding our stereotyped image of weakness and dependence on females.

Viewing this film, it is easy to see why Max Linder and Charlie Chaplin had mutual admiration for each other's work. Both were absolute comic geniuses.