In His Merry Blues-Chaser -- August 27, 2021

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

Fox Sunshine Comedies frequently featured pretty girls and lions. Clyde Cook was an acrobatic comedian from Australia. Al St John was Roscoe Arbuckle's nephew. Bud Fisher's Mutt and Jeff, heroes of a popular daily comic strip, starred in a series of cartoons animated by the Barré Studio.

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

Exhibitors Herald, 27-August-1921

"Al St. John, who has been leading man and featured player in Fox Sunshine comedies, hereafter will star in comedy features which are built along lines of the Cook subjects." Exhibitors' Herald refers to releases as "publications."

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

Exhibitors Herald, 20-August-1921

"Brownie the Century Comedies Wonder-Dog." starred in many century comedies. Among Brownie's co-stars were Harry Sweet, Charles Doherty and "Baby Peggy, the talented little 2-year-old comedienne...but the fact remains that Brownie was always the featured star of the picture."

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

Exhibitors Herald, 27-August-1921

Charles Doherty and Bert Roach in a scene from a Century thrill comedy.

Exhibitors Herald, 13-August-1921

Harry Sweet had a relatively short career as an actor, but worked as a writer and director until he died in a plane crash in 1933.

Exhibitors Herald, 13-August-1921

Century Comedies also featured pretty girls like Cupie Dolan. 

Exhibitors Herald, 20-August-1921

Ben Turpin was Mack Sennett's biggest star to appear in short comedies during the early 1920s.

Exhibitors Herald, 27-August-1921

Mabel Normand returned to Sennett to make features after her contract with Goldwyn ended. Molly O' was a great success.  

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

Moving Picture World, 13-August-1921

Hal Roach was producing one-reel comedies with Snub Pollard, Eddie Boland and Gaylord Lloyd, Harold's brother. Harold Lloyd was still working with Roach, but had become pretty independent.

Moving Picture World, 20-August-1921

Roach's business was booming, he was also producing a Ruth Roland serial, so he had to build "a dark stage, wardrobe and dressing room building, laboratory, café and plunge." A dark stage is fully enclosed, rather than open like a standard silent stage. A plunge is a pool. I might write about Son of Wallingford later.

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

William Campbell -- I almost typed Joseph Campbell -- was preparing to produce a series of comedies starring little kids and animals.

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

The Christie Film Company was a major producer of short comedies from 1911 to 1933. Al Christie was the director and Charles Christie ran the business. The Christies featured situation comedy more than the slapstick favored by Mack Sennett and Hal Roach.

Moving Picture World, 13-August-1921

Harry Cohn, his brother Jack and Joe Brandt provided the initials for C.B.C. Film Sales Corp. The Hallroom Boys Comedies were a long running series of short comedies, based on a comic strip by Harold MacGill. At this point, Sid Smith played Percy and Harry McCoy played Ferdy.

Moving Picture World, 27-August-1921

Moving Picture World, 13-August-1921

Marcel Perez was probably born in Spain and began appearing in films for Pathé Frères in France. In 1910, he signed with Ambrosio Films in Turino, Italy. The first set of films includes five films he made for Ambrosio. He played a character called Robinet. The movies are fun and Perez shows a nice goofy quality. "Robinet's White Suit" works a nice series of variations on an old gag. After Italy entered World War One in 1915, Perez went to America and starred in films and directed there. This was unusual because most people who starred in film comedies in Europe did not succeed when they moved to America.

Perez did very well, appearing under a variety of character names including Bungles, Tweedledum, Twee-Dee, Tweedy and Dweedledum.

Mirth is a good name for a company that makes comedies. Tweedy's seventh film for Mirth was going to be a satire of the big Dempsey-Carpentier fight, with Perez as Carpentier. Read a contemporary newspaper article about the fight:
http://cablecarguy.blogspot.com/2021/07/american-champion-knocks-george.html

Back in 2016, Undercrank Productions, producers of the Accidentally Preserved and Musty Suffer series, made The Marcel Perez Collection, a tribute which includes movies from all the countries where he worked.