Here is a Semon comedy that reveals most of the problems with his work: the gags are well executed, but without much flair and with no logic in their set-up.
Semon works backstage in a theater where open jars of nitroglycerin are left sitting about for animals in a magician's acts to drink from; where open barrels of lamp black are stored so that wind machines, turned on for no particular reason, can spew their contents onto the audience, who continue to watch the show, unconcernedly wearing blackface; where stage managers carry about guns so they can rob performers of their jewels --which performers, of course, bring with them to the theater, seemingly for that very purpose.
The whole thing develops into a fair but derivative Max Sennett cops-and-railroad chase in which excellent stuntwork is executed, until the train runs into a rail car full of dynamite, which is left standing, as rail cars full of dynamite always are, on the main track; and the whole thing is "explained" by reducing the chase to a dream sequence. Semon performs his pratfalls and daredevil feats competently, and Oliver Hardy is stuck with his usual thankless role of heavy. The movie, however, is not about Hardy, as its other reviewer would have us believe, but Semon.
Oh. I said that this movie shows most of the problems with Semon's work. The other problem seems to be that he repeated the same gags from movie to movie. Not too awful an experience if you've never seen one before, but to an audience that sees the same gags executed by the same comic in the same sense-free environment every two months.... well, if you're seen one, you've seen 'em all, I suppose.
Semon works backstage in a theater where open jars of nitroglycerin are left sitting about for animals in a magician's acts to drink from; where open barrels of lamp black are stored so that wind machines, turned on for no particular reason, can spew their contents onto the audience, who continue to watch the show, unconcernedly wearing blackface; where stage managers carry about guns so they can rob performers of their jewels --which performers, of course, bring with them to the theater, seemingly for that very purpose.
The whole thing develops into a fair but derivative Max Sennett cops-and-railroad chase in which excellent stuntwork is executed, until the train runs into a rail car full of dynamite, which is left standing, as rail cars full of dynamite always are, on the main track; and the whole thing is "explained" by reducing the chase to a dream sequence. Semon performs his pratfalls and daredevil feats competently, and Oliver Hardy is stuck with his usual thankless role of heavy. The movie, however, is not about Hardy, as its other reviewer would have us believe, but Semon.
Oh. I said that this movie shows most of the problems with Semon's work. The other problem seems to be that he repeated the same gags from movie to movie. Not too awful an experience if you've never seen one before, but to an audience that sees the same gags executed by the same comic in the same sense-free environment every two months.... well, if you're seen one, you've seen 'em all, I suppose.
