User Reviews

Mack Sennett's health is suffering, so his doctor recommends a change of climate -- from his orange grove to Mount Lowe. He can still see his grove from the heights, but Eddie Dillon almost dies in the snow in this "Comedy of Sunny California".

One of the reasons usually cited for the rise of South California's prominence in the movie industry is the variety of different shooting sites. The idea of an orange grove and a snowstorm within sight of each other would surprise most people and Sennett took advantage, as he would at Keystone, of local events and sights. Here we get a look at the Rubio Canyon funicular railway leading to Mt. Lowe, as well as Mabel Normand frisking in the snow. It's a bit mild, particularly if your idea of a Sennett comedy involves bombs and thrown pies, but very amusing.

One of Sennett's pictures for Biograph, filmed on the company's second trip to LA. We can assume that Mabel Normand is only on the trip, due to her being part of Sennett's comedy cast, and his responsibility. On Biograph's first trip, Griffith left the insolent Mabel behind.

Sennett's Biograph movies are very different to his crazy Keystone 'melange of rough and tumble'. This one is almost naive by comparison,and rather gentile Edwardian. However, Mabel and that young scalawag Jack Pickford make a dull sequence of scenes come alive, with their high frolics and snowball fight.It is noticeable that adolescent Jack can't keep his hands off Mabel, and makes the most of the opportunity presented when the family have to haul Mack up out of the canyon.Jack and Mabel were always good friends, and Mabel later adored his wife, the beautiful but tragic Olive Thomas. One English movie magazine was so convinced that the two were an item that they ran 'Jack and Mabel' cartoon strips. Although different ages, they had similar child-like personalities.

To sum up, Mabel is hyperactive Mabel in the picture (could she be anything different?) whilst Mack is nothing like his normal self - but then he is meant to be dangerously sick. The visit to picturesque Mount Lowe is typical of later Keystone films, where scenery (and animals) are used for effect.

An ill man (Mack Sennett) is advised by his doctor to get some mountain air. He and his friend visit the mountain. The man experiences some dangerous adventures on the mountain and decides he wants to go back to the orange groves of Hollywood.

Shortly after this, Sennett was in charge of Keystone films and known for going to interesting locations and improvising a story with wild slapstick gags. This film is unlike those in that Dell Henderson (actor, soon to be a director) wrote the script and it seems to be a tight script with each scene follows logically.

What I found most interesting is the missed opportunity for "point of view" shots. For example, a man looks though a telescope at a distant scene, but instead of seeing what the man sees from his point of view, the camera cuts to a medium shot obviously not from his far away point of view.

D. W. Griffith apparently used POV in "Birth of a Nation" 1913 and "Intolerance" 1915, Eisenstein used it in "Potemkin" (1921). Harold Lloyd used it in "Safety Last" in 1923, and Buster Keaton used it in "Sherlock Junior" in 1924. Abel Gance used it in his film "Napoleon" in 1927.

Still it is surprising that it was not used more often in silent films.

Possibly it is because we naturally accept everything we see through our own eyes as objective, while we consider something we see through other's eye impossible or a dream.

A Mack Sennett comedy for Biograph written by comedy actor Dell Henderson with no real structure other than a trip on Mount Lowe funicular railway for hypochondriac Sennett and his family for the sake of his health. The locations are pretty and Mabel Normand is full of fun, but the jokes largely consist of people falling down hills.

The cast for this American Biograph film is interesting. Mack Sennett, the famous director responsible for Keystone Comedies, not only directs the film but stars in it. His most frequent leading lady in the Keystone films, Mabel Normand, is also in this film as is Jack Pickford, Mary's brother who drank and drugged himself to death at a very early age. As for the story, it could have been very good but the story seems choppy and ineffective...and could have been much better.

When the story begins, some hypochondriac (Sennett) is sent by his doctor up to the mountains...presumably for the healthy mountain air. However, in the process all sorts of calamities occur...and he's nearly killed. And, in the process, he seems to have learned absolutely nothing.

The story simply is not told well. Had the film taken a few more minutes, it might have seemed less choppy and misdirected. As is, it's a bit hard to see what the point of the picture is...if any.