But to get back to the art of the director who makes a good slapstick comedy. The directors such as Mack Sennett and his staff of associates, such as Hal Roach who guides the destinies of the bespectacled Harold Lloyd, and such as Henry Lehrman, who follows blindly but often quite successfully in Mr. Sennett's footsteps. These men, laboring tirelessly on the invention of new “gags,” stunts and fooleries for the amusement of the picture public are deserving of immense credit.
“Slapstick” is a term that ill describes the efforts of these men. It is a hangover from the period when motion pictures were “movies” and deserved no better appellation. It suggests, besides the act of employing the old stage slapstick itself, the equally worn trick of throwing custard pies. Strange as it may seem to some whose memory of the old days in the making of pictures overshadows their ability to make observations in the present, pies are seldom used in a comedy studio these days, except in the dining room for purposes of conventional consumption.
The throwing of a pie was ceased long since as a comedy “gag” by the high class slapstick directors. Other “gags” have replaced it. Once in a while it is resorted to, probably just for old times sake but as a rule the comedy directors and those mysterious men of the comedy studio, who can hardly be called scenario writers, men whose inspiration is often the combined effect of phonograph music and bottled spirits, are able to hand out something newer and more amusing than mere pie-throwing.
What appears to be most interesting in the production of these comedies is the amazing machinery at the director's control for the entertainment and the fooling, the funny hocus-pocus fooling, of the picture going public. Mack Sennett's studio on the western coast is probably the best equipped in this way and every mechanical contrivance he employs in the making of his pictures is guarded jealously by him and his staff as a state secret might be guarded. Mr. Sennett doesn't believe in telling people how he performs his tricks. He works on the principle that the public is better satisfied by remaining mystified, of which more anon.
So it is beyond the power of anyone outside of Mr. Sennett's confidence to set down the exact manner in which he causes to be done some of the most amazing stunts on the screen. One can hazard the guess that he makes a comedian appear to be walking on water by double exposure but, given this information, any other director would be hard put to it to do the trick successfully.
Mr. Sennett is often called upon to assist other directors in producing a thrill. Most people well remember Anita Stewart's picture of two or three years ago, “In Old Kentucky.” And those who can recall the picture will also be able to recall the scene wherein Miss Stewart, on horseback, urged her steed to jump a yawning chasm, rather wide and terrifyingly deep. It was one of the biggest thrills in the picture and it was made in Mr. Sennett's studio. Neither Miss Stewart, nor Marshall Neilan, who directed all the rest of “In Old Kentucky” had anything to do with this particular scene. It was further said that Mr. Sennett demanded and received a sum equivalent to the yearly salary of the President of the United States, for his contribution to the old melodrama.
MACK SENNETT MIXES SITUATIONS LUDICROUSLY. HERE IS A MARRIAGE SERVICE PROCEEDING UNDER DIFFICULTIES
MACK SENNETT NOT ONLY GOES IN FOR “GAGS” WHOLESALE BUT ENDOWS HIS PICTURES WITH A FINE QUALITY OF BURLESQUE. THIS IS A SCENE FROM “DOWN ON THE FARM”