User Reviews

Mabel Normand is cute as a detective with a fake 'tache and a gun in her handbag (apparently all you needed to do to become a licenced private eye back in 1912 was to answer a newspaper ad). It's an early Sennett comedy, so the action is frantic but the laughs are sparse.

Prior to the autumn of 1912, before Mack Sennett founded his Keystone Studio, he learned the fundamentals of filmmaking at American Biograph under the tutelage of D.W. Griffith. It was at Biograph that Sennett was assigned his own unit to make comedies, working with three of the principal players who would later rise to stardom at Keystone: Mabel Normand, Fred Mace, and Ford Sterling. In the short films produced for Biograph during 1911-2, Sennett and his crew honed their skills and began to establish some favorite themes they would develop further at Keystone.

Katchem Kate, which stars Mr. Mace and Miss Normand, is an enjoyable effort that plays very much like an early Keystone. Fred runs a school for detectives, although his "lessons" seem to consist merely of showing his students how to apply fake mustaches to their faces and wave pistols around. Our heroine Kate (played by Mabel) works at a dry-cleaning establishment, where her job is dreary. When she spies an ad for the detective school in a newspaper she promptly signs up. Before you know it she's a proud graduate of Fred's academy, complete with badge, pistol, and her very own fake mustache. She soon happens upon a den of anarchists, who hold their meetings in a shabby lair. They behave in a furtive fashion, and identify each other by means of a secret knock and a "high sign." Mabel (sorry, I mean Kate) dons male drag and manages to infiltrate the gang, and is briefly locked in their hideout, but escapes and enlists the help of her erstwhile instructor, Fred. Together they attempt to thwart the gang before the bad guys can set off a bomb-one of those old-fashioned cartoon-y bombs, which resembles a bowling ball with a fuse. In the end, Kate (i.e. Mabel) succeeds in thwarting the evildoers while Fred, her instructor, makes a mess of things.

Keystone fans will recognize a number of familiar motifs here, such as the gang of scoundrels who meet in a secret hideaway, cross-dressing used as a disguise, and, of course, inept police work. Certainly those funny-looking bombs would be very much in evidence in subsequent Keystone comedies. It's a treat to see Mabel Normand looking so fresh and energetic, and as a bonus we also get a glimpse of teenage Jack Pickford (Mary's kid brother) as an office boy. Fred Mace gives a spirited performance, and his scenes running his bogus detective academy are amusing. Katchem Kate is engaging and funny, and moves along at a brisk tempo; over all I'd call it one of the best Sennett Biograph shorts I've seen. And although audiences of 1912 didn't know it, Katchem Kate, simple as it was, would serve as a forerunner to a vast outpouring of comic films, from Hollywood's first great comedy producer.

This is a great early Biograph Company action adventure film. It matches up well with the D.W. Griffith, "A Girl and Her Trust" which came out the same year.

Mabel seems to be working ironing dresses in a dress shop when something catches her attention in a newspaper. Apparently, it is an ad on becoming a detective. Mabel goes rushing off to a Detective school run by Fred Ward.

Apparently, the school is something of a shame, as Ward just gives her a badge, a gun, and a fake mustache. It doesn't matter because Mabel is on the case. She almost immediately runs into a suspicious looking character and follows him. She carefully notes the secret sign he uses to get into a suspicious looking house - knock four time, wait a moment and knock a fifth time. There is also a secret sign to enter - the finger moves down from forehead to chin, then across the throat, as if someone was cutting a throat. Mabel sees from the window that the clubhouse is an anarchist society and the man she followed has prepared a bomb.

Mabel goes home and puts on men's clothing. Besides being an early, if not the first female detective movie, this is also an early example of cross-dressing. She looks rather boyish in the tight fighting men's suit and then she puts on her detective mustache.

Mabel gives the secret knock and secret sign and manages entrance into the anarchist club house. However she is unable to capture the gang. Instead they imprison her. Thinking quickly, Mabel grabs a chair, smashes a window and escapes.

She goes to her teacher Fred Ward for help. He comes with her, but ends up following the wrong man. Ward mistakes a fruit melon that the man is carrying for a bomb. Ward finds three cops. This might be the earliest incarnation of the Keystone Cops. They follow Ward back to the melon man's apartment, but when they find out it is only a melon, they arrest Ward. In the meantime, our Ketchem Kate has tracked down the real bomb-throwing anarchist.

I won't give away the ending, except to say that it is entirely satisfying.

For fans of movie Female detectives, comical cross-dressing, or Keystone Cops, this movie is a must.