Wife and Auto Trouble (1916)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Decent Keystone comedy has a poor husband (William Collier) being abused at home by his wife, her mother and her brother. The husband is having an affair with a woman (Mae Busch) he works for and when the brother finds out he calls his sister and soon a war is on. WIFE AND AUTO TROUBLE isn't going to go down as a comedy masterpiece but there are enough good moments to make it worth sitting through even if it's not the most original film out there. I actually thought the best stuff was at the beginning when we see the husband sitting at the breakfast table where his no-good brother-in-law gets all the attention as well as the bigger egg and the bigger cup of coffee. This entire sequence contains some pretty funny stuff including a clever joke on how the husband tries to get the bigger coffee. The stuff inside the office is where things start to get rather silly but there are still a few interesting moments from here. It's also fun to see that the cheater is actually the good guy, which I'm sure had some moral police in 1916 in an uproar. For the most part Collier does a very good job in the lead and Blanche Payson is great as his evil wife. Joseph Belmont is fun as the brother-in-law. The film ends with a chase and just the kind that you'd expect from the studio.
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Decent Keystone comedy has a poor husband (William Collier) being abused at home by his wife, her mother and her brother. The husband is having an affair with a woman (Mae Busch) he works for and when the brother finds out he calls his sister and soon a war is on. WIFE AND AUTO TROUBLE isn't going to go down as a comedy masterpiece but there are enough good moments to make it worth sitting through even if it's not the most original film out there. I actually thought the best stuff was at the beginning when we see the husband sitting at the breakfast table where his no-good brother-in-law gets all the attention as well as the bigger egg and the bigger cup of coffee. This entire sequence contains some pretty funny stuff including a clever joke on how the husband tries to get the bigger coffee. The stuff inside the office is where things start to get rather silly but there are still a few interesting moments from here. It's also fun to see that the cheater is actually the good guy, which I'm sure had some moral police in 1916 in an uproar. For the most part Collier does a very good job in the lead and Blanche Payson is great as his evil wife. Joseph Belmont is fun as the brother-in-law. The film ends with a chase and just the kind that you'd expect from the studio.