For almost an hour, Mabel Normand carries this film with delicious little bits of comedy. My two favorite scenes were Mabel getting a donkey to eat a strap, so her father doesn't beat her with it and her eating cherries off a cake and then denying it with her mouth full. We see why Mabel was called the Queen of comedy.
The last fifteen minutes slips into melodrama. Mabel did want desperately to be taken as a serious actress and so she was showing that she could do serious stuff too. Anybody who has seen her in D.W. Griffith's "Mender of Nets" knows that she was great at that too.
I found the transition from comedy to melodrama rather abrupt. I kept thinking of the irony that Lew Cody, the villain, in the film, turned out to be the man she married in real life. I have heard rumors that this was a marriage of convenience. Given the fact that their is so little chemistry between Cody and Mabel here, I now believe it. There is also unfortunately little chemistry between the lead actor and Mabel. She had far more chemistry with Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe Arbuckle as her leading men.
George Nichols is quite good as her fathers. Nichols directed four of Chaplin's earliest films at Keystone and Mabel directed at least three of them. Add Mack Sennett and you have the three people who are probably most responsible for Chaplin becoming a movie star.
This film is a must for any movie buff interested in silent cinema. Some other reviewer noted that it is the first feature comedy with a single star. Mabel beat Keaton "The Saphead" (1920), by two years, and Chaplin "The Kid" (1921) and Harold Lloyd "A Sailor Made Man" (1921) by three years to feature films. This film is one more reason we have to speak of the "five" great silent film clowns (and maybe six if we want to include Roscoe Arbuckle).
The last fifteen minutes slips into melodrama. Mabel did want desperately to be taken as a serious actress and so she was showing that she could do serious stuff too. Anybody who has seen her in D.W. Griffith's "Mender of Nets" knows that she was great at that too.
I found the transition from comedy to melodrama rather abrupt. I kept thinking of the irony that Lew Cody, the villain, in the film, turned out to be the man she married in real life. I have heard rumors that this was a marriage of convenience. Given the fact that their is so little chemistry between Cody and Mabel here, I now believe it. There is also unfortunately little chemistry between the lead actor and Mabel. She had far more chemistry with Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe Arbuckle as her leading men.
George Nichols is quite good as her fathers. Nichols directed four of Chaplin's earliest films at Keystone and Mabel directed at least three of them. Add Mack Sennett and you have the three people who are probably most responsible for Chaplin becoming a movie star.
This film is a must for any movie buff interested in silent cinema. Some other reviewer noted that it is the first feature comedy with a single star. Mabel beat Keaton "The Saphead" (1920), by two years, and Chaplin "The Kid" (1921) and Harold Lloyd "A Sailor Made Man" (1921) by three years to feature films. This film is one more reason we have to speak of the "five" great silent film clowns (and maybe six if we want to include Roscoe Arbuckle).