The Weiss World of Comedy

A very nice surprise from VCI Entertainment this month, the dumbly-titled Weiss-O-Rama collection (SRP $29.99, and why didn't they just call it Weiss-O-Roni?) offers 18 short comedies produced by the Weiss Brothers, an outfit better remembered for serials and westerns, plus a couple of highly entertaining cult oddities. Unlike nearly every other collection of low-budget silent comedies, though, that we've ever seen here In The Balcony, Weiss-O-Rama comes from original 35mm materials, and the films look amazingly pristine... It's nearly impossible to believe that these things have been kept in such good condition for 80 years and are available for us to enjoy. If they're not the greatest silent comedies ever made (and believe me, they aren't) they're still a treasure and highly enjoyable, especially if you like seeing what Los Angeles, Hollywood, and Pasadena looked like nearly a century ago (and who doesn't?).

Probably the best-known comic in the set is Ben Turpin (1869-1940), he of the giant moustache and weird crossed eyes, who was a few years past his prime (he'd been a Mack Sennett favorite) but still delivers some oddly amusing goods in three 1928 2-reelers, The Cockeyed Family, Why Babies Leave Home, and Holding His Own. Cockeyed is a gem, as Turpin, his wife, and infant son all suffer from an affliction that indicates their left eye is staring at the Pacific while their right eye is staring at Saturn. The kid is played by Billy Barty, who was only four at the time, but wouldn't grow any bigger.

Next up is an even larger moustache, Harry "Snub" Pollard (1889-1961), an Australian comic who was still doing comedy bits in films right up through his death in the early 1960s. A former Keystone Kop who also had a long stint working with Hal Roach, Pollard stars here in The Bum's Rush and Fire! (both 1927), and Once Over and The Big Shot (both 1928). Fire! has him, most improbably, playing a hotel house detective who switches over and becomes the house fireman because his girlfriend prefers a man in a uniform. Unfortunately for Snub, the previous fireman had attracted the attention of a pretty woman and her gorilla-like jealous husband. And yeah, somewhere along the way the hotel catches on fire for the film's climax.

Poodles Hanneford (1891-1967) is a name with which I was not familiar; apparently, the guy had an equestrian act and toured with various circuses and sideshows. He works a horse into each of his films, and does some very amusing trick riding in Circus Daze, Better Behave, and Fare Enough (all 1928). If he had a comic personality, though, it doesn't come through in these films. Nice riding, though.

Disc two is more of a potpourri, but a rewarding one. Comic strip hero Hairbreadth Harry comes to life in Sign them Papers (1927), Fearless Harry (1926) and Rudolph's Revenge (1928), Jimmy Aubrey (who graduated to bit parts in Laurel & Hardy and then walk-ins in hundreds of A- and B-movies) in Alibi Alley (1927), Keep Smiling and Have a Heart (both 1928), and two (of the three known) Izzie and Lizzie domestic comedies, Ham and Herring and Movie Mania (both 1928), one of which features a scene (of a man trying to shave while his daughter hogs the mirror) that was clearly swiped from W.C. Fields, who -- had he known about it -- surely beat the both of 'em up.

The two "bonus" shorts are both impressive, even at one reel each. The first is an adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, reportedly made in 1923, which would make it a true contemporary of the Lon Chaney classic. This one offers a small but nice cathedral setting, a hunchback sans gruesome makeup, and a Classics Illustrated Condensed version of the tale that oddly enough pretty much tells the whole story in only 10 minutes.

The second bonus short is Who is Safe? (1925), which actually shows a defenseless young woman being assaulted by a cab driver because she's not careful (and frankly, the cabbie is so creepy and demented that he would've set off alarm bells with Helen Keller). Anyway, women are instructed that they should learn Jiu Jitsu, and then we're treated to a very nice demonstration (in two speeds, normal and slow, just like on Walker Texas Ranger) as to where to kick or grope a fellow who's accosting you. Great stuff, and at least as entertaining as Billy Barty when he was four.

All shorts include appropriate piano scores and several of them have commentary by Richard Roberts, who apparently rescued and restored the Weiss films. Unfortunately, he spends too much time apologizing for them not being "great" silent comedies (hey, there aren't too many Chaplins or Keatons out there) and not really appreciating them for what they are. Well, here In The Balcony, WE appreciated 'em for what they are: beautiful "new" silent comedies unseen by practically all of us, and a great 2-disc edition that is worthy of showing friends who may not have seen many silent comedies.

Highly Recommended and you can find it at www.vcient.com or your local retailer.