A great part of Mr. Sennett's art lies in his inventive genius and his happy faculty of applying some basically sound trick of mechanics to a ridiculous comedy situation. In this respect he proceeds from the same principle that R. L. Goldberg, the cartoonist, does. Those “easy machines” contrived by Goldberg, involved, intricate and ridiculous, that finally end up by scratching a man's back or slapping a mosquito, have as a basis an actual mechanical theory. So with Mr. Sennett. In a recent Ben Turpin picture the comedian appeared as a baker. He was shown “holing” doughnuts with a mechanic's auger and going about his work in a perfectly serious fashion. A little later the subtitle “testing” was flashed on the screen, followed by the scene of the baker testing his doughnuts by slipping them over a bar and chinning himself on them.
The effect was utterly ridiculous, uproariously funny. And what was it? Really just an application of sound scientific methods, never funny when applied correctly, but as applied to a bakery more or less of a scream. Mr. Sennett and his staff will startle audiences into fits of laughter time and again by such methods.
While on the subject of Ben Turpin it is only fair to record here that Mack Sennett has never received the credit due him for developing this cross-eyed Romeo. Turpin can be, and has been, quite a tiresome bore on the screen. He proved it a few years ago by trying to star himself without Mr. Sennett's guiding hand—and he failed. Certainly in his case direction enters into his success largely. Ford Sterling is another who once left Mr. Sennett's guidance to form his own company. But he also came back to the fold.
The tricks of the slapstick producers are numerous. The familiar scene of the automobiles skidding all over a wet pavement is sometimes actually hazardous to those participating but more often it is filmed with a slow camera, the cars also skidding around rather slowly, with the result that the completed picture gives the impression of sheer and utter recklessness. In the Ben Turpin picture already mentioned the comedian endeavored to eat asparagus and just as he would get a tip near his mouth it would curl away like a snake. Of course there are such things as wires and springs.
The element of surprise enters into the making of the modern comedy to a great extent. Harold Lloyd and his director, Hal Roach, employ the method of the surprise laugh to admirable effect. One of the biggest laughs that this comedian has ever been responsible for was brought on by a totally unexpected surprise. He appeared as a youth who sought suicide as a way out of all his troubles. He climbed on the railing of a bridge with a rock hung round his neck and leaped into the water below. The water was only about a foot deep and the youth came to a jarring stop when his feet hit the bottom. The laugh that followed was really to be described as an outburst.
Messrs. Lloyd and Roach probably scorn the tricks by which scenes can be made to look thrilling, preferring instead to accomplish the actual thrill, more than any other comedy producers. It may be recalled that Mr. Lloyd once caused a variety of heart afflictions by appearing in a picture in which he was seen walking in his sleep on the edge of a high building. Fake? Not a bit of it! The real thing—that is the high building, not the sleep-walking.
All the studios in California confined to the elaborate production of slapstick-thrill comedy have their own hospitals and their own staffs of bonesetters and doctors. And, in order that the public may have its fill of laughs, these hospitals often have their fill of patients.
Chapter XI
OTHER TRICKS UP DIRECTORS' SLEEVES
Proving that the illusion once created by the double exposure has been completely spoiled by giving it so much publicity.—And so the spoiling process is begun on a number of other tricks employed by the director to fool the public
