DVD Report: The Best of Spike Jones

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No, not the very modern film and music video director Spike Jonze, but comedy musician and television variety star Spike Jones (1911–1965). My first introduction to the loony imagination of this latter-day vaudevillian was via audio tapes in the 1970s. I could only guess what his antics looked like, but it was funny enough, and I seem to recall my partner Fred Yockers and I sometimes using it as pre-show music. It certainly got us in the mood, if not the audience. Some material made it to VHS by the 1980s, and eventually to DVD, but The Best of Spike Jones is the first remastered, fairly definitive sampling of his work. It actually came out a couple of years ago and I bought a copy right away, fully intending to write a blog post on it "next week." Well, better late than never....

So why should you care about Spike Jones? Easy, because he....
• kept alive the "crazy comedy" tradition of Olsen & Johnson (Helzapoppin'), the Ritz Brothers, and the Marx Brothers
• was very funny and innovative
• used a lot of physical gags
• bridged the gap between vaudeville and television, featuring a lot of old-timey physical comedians on his show
• worked with funny people like Doodles Weaver (uncle of Sigourney!), Eddie Kline (directed Keaton and W.C. Fields), and the banjo player and natural clown, Freddy Morgan (see below).
• was a major influence on the comedy of Ernie Kovacs, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Dr. Demento, Laugh-In, Frank Zappa, George Carlin, and Billy Crystal, as well as such current New York groups as Polygraph Lounge and The Maestrosities.... but more on them soon.

....and, most important...
• frequently used whistles, cowbells, gun shots, mouth sounds, feathers, rubber chickens, pants drops, and trapdoors

This is a 3-dvd set, with 3½ hours of material on the first two discs, and the two pilots they shot (tv tryout episodes, not aviators!) comprise disc three. You can pick it up for $25 on Amazon, and it's well worth the price. Here are just a few samples...

The self-deprecating introduction to their show:

Followed by a typically insane and fast-paced music number, which ends up involving eccentric dancing, juggling hatchets, oddball instrumentations, and the destruction of instruments (decades before The Who).

Peter James, slapping himself silly and showing some fancy chops that predate break dancing by half a lifetime:




And the rubber-faced Freddy Morgan:

There's so much more I could include, but I have Christmas shopping to do. Maybe you should just buy this one for yourself!

DVD Report: The Max Linder Box Set

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The rediscovery and remastering of silent film classics, reintroducing these artists to the public by way of annotated DVD box sets, has been a  great gift to the physical comedy fan. First it was Chaplin and Keaton, then Lloyd and Langdon, followed by Charley Chase, Douglas Fairbanks and, most recently, that modern silent clown, Pierre Etaix.  And now finally the father of silent film comedy, Max Linder, is being justly celebrated for his pioneering career that spanned over 400 films, about 130 of which have survived, in a handsome 6-disc DVD set complete with historical commentaries and new musical scores by New York's own Ben Model.

Okay, I just made all that up. Yep, the DVD cover picture too.  (Blame Photoshop.) Sorry about that, but there's no Max Linder box set, no definitive collection, no historical retrospective. Which is a shame, not only because his work is so deserving of it, but because the passage of time means no one is still alive who worked with him (he died in 1925) to answer all our questions.  (Yes, I have questions.) Keaton and Chaplin were rediscovered in the 60s when they and many of their collaborators were still kicking, resulting in a treasure trove of material on their incredible body of work. No such luck here.

What we do have are two DVDs showcasing some of Linder's work, and it is these I will review here:

Laugh with Max Linder
Image Entertainment (2003)

The Actors: Rare Films of Max Linder

Classic Video Streams (2009)

Laugh with Max Linder was compiled by his daughter Maud and is most valuable for containing his wonderful feature film, Seven Years Bad Luck. It also has a musical score composed to go with the actual films, whereas the Rare Films DVD uses some generic Dixieland music as a background throughout, which does more harm than good.  Oh well, just wait for that definitive DVD box set!

The Rare Films of Max Linder DVD is more recent but contains mostly early films from 1905 to 1912. To give this some chronological perspective, keep in mind that by the time Mack Sennett founded Keystone Studios in 1912, Linder had already made a couple of hundred films.  In 1913, Sennett hired Chaplin, who did not debut his tramp character until the following year. As for Keaton, his first film appearance wasn't until 1917, when he had a role in Fatty Arbuckle's   The Butcher Boy.

So Linder was pretty much on his own, ahead of his time and far from Hollywood, in the beginning grinding out a film a day for Pathé in Paris. In the process, he pretty much invented the comic narrative film. While early filmmakers often used gags as their subject matter (see these previous posts), it was Linder who developed a recognizable character — that of an often inebriated Paris dandy — and began to develop stories around him.  The first movies were nothing more than simple gag ideas, but over time Linder developed his foppish character, his storytelling skills, and his use of film language.

By the time you get to Linder's "feature-length" films (about an hour long), the artistic progress is very much in evidence. Now working in Hollywood and Paris, his fame eclipsed by Chaplin, Linder is still somewhat ahead of his time in shooting features.  Here are the dates of his four features:

The Little Cafe (1919)
Seven Years Bad Luck (1921)
Be My Wife (1921)
The Three Must Get-Theres (1922)

And the dates of the very first features made by Hollywood's fearsome foursome:
• Chaplin — The Kid, 1921
• Lloyd — A Sailor-Made Man, 1921
• Keaton — The Three Ages, 1923
• Langdon — Tramp. Tramp, Tramp, 1926

Max Linder: Character Actor

Max Linder the actor (né Gabriel-Maximilien Leuvielle) always played the character Max Linder, a well-to-do Parisian with a knack for getting himself into trouble, usually with women, often from too much drinking.  Here's a sequence from the opening of Seven Years Bad Luck:




Later in that movie, disguising himself to hide from the train conductors after having lost his ticket money, Linder shows his versatility as a comic actor:

Max Linder: Gag Meister

Most gags are older than the hills and were not invented by the famous performers who usually get all the credit. Linder's broken mirror routine predates the Marx Brothers by more than a decade, but of course he was hardly the first.  But you know me, I do get my jollies pointing out earlier versions of gags, so here are a couple from Linder's films that you may have seen elsewhere — and many years later.

Ye olde getting your coat caught around a pole routine, from Linder's  Max and the Quinquina (1911):

In case you were wondering about the card bit at the end:  nice plot device. In the first half of the movie, a drunken Linder insults every big shot in town, inciting each of them to challenge him to a duel at dawn, for which they each hand him their business card. In the second half, every time he gets into trouble he produces one of these cards, is immediately mistaken for the big shot, and is given preferential treatment.

And here's Buster Keaton ten years later in The Goat (1921):

And as Hovey Burgess reminds me, Soviet clown Oleg Popov did the same thing in his slack wire routine, "accidentally" wrapping his coat around the wire.  (I haven't been able to find a clip of him doing that exact bit, but probably have it somewhere and will add it here if I do locate it.)


Here's another classic bit from Be My Wife, his 1921 feature film of which only 13 minutes survive.  Max is disguised as a piano teacher so he can get closer to his beloved. When he discovers the piano is too far from the bench, he tries to move the piano rather than the bench. His girlfriend's aunt Agatha shows him the easier way:

And now here's the legendary Swiss clown Grock doing the same gag:

Grock started working with his first partner in 1903, so for all we know he may have beaten Linder to the punch with this one.  In any case, it's Grock who gets the most comedy out of it, fleshing out the gag with his clown's dumb determination and then allowing us to share in the joy this naive character experiences at the revelation that there is indeed a better way.  With Linder it doesn't really work because his far more clever character would never do that, unless as an intentional joke.


Also from Be My Wife is this extended sequence in which Linder stages a mock fight (with himself!) to impress his beloved Mary and especially her aunt that he is the better potential husband, and not Simon, the cowardly milquetoast rival that Aunt Agatha is promoting for the position.

And a similar sequence from Charley Chase's classic Mighty Like a Moose (1926).  Here's the wild situation: Charley and his wife both find themselves unattractive and both secretly undergo medical procedures to improve their looks.  They meet outside the home, fail to recognize each other, and start flirting. Charley is the first to realize the truth of the situation and, as a firm believer in the male's innate right to the double standard, schemes to punish his wife for cheating on him with himself.  Yes, wacky!  So Charley the husband beats up Charley the lover.




Although I hope to get around to writing in more depth about the variations on the broken mirror routine, any introduction to Linder would not be complete without his superb version of it from Seven Years Bad Luck.  In this clip, two amorous servants have just accidentally broken the mirror, and one of them enlists a buddy to hide the misdeed from Max.




What I most like about Linder's gag work, however, is how he learned to develop and integrate gags into his story.  His broken mirror routine can certainly stand on its own, but it is also integral to the plot because the seven years of bad luck that Max spends the whole movie hoping to avoid is triggered by the second breaking of the mirror.  Likewise in the same movie, you'll find a nifty gag wherein an imprisoned Max is cowered into scratching the back of his tough and bullying cellmate.  The reprise of this in the courtroom scene totally works...  but you'll just have to see the movie to know what I'm talking about!

Max Linder: Cinematographer

Coming from the theatre and making his first film in 1905, Linder was an early adapter to the form, no doubt learning through trial and error what worked in the new medium, how to use time, space, and special effects to create comedy beyond what he could do on stage.  In my interview with her, Maud Linder singled out the 1906 short, Max Takes a Bath, as a good example of her father's early use of film. 




Fast forward to 1921's Be My Wife, whose opening scene is a cute visual gag where an overprotective Aunt Agatha is fooled by an optical illusion.




Linder's success and the parallel progress of the art of film allowed him to work with other talented artists who brought greater production values to his movies.  One of these was Charles Van Enger, whose cinematographic talents are very much in evidence in the framing and lighting for Seven Years Bad Luck. Here's his bio from the Turner Classic Movies site.

Charles Van Enger (1890-1980), a leading cinematographer of the silent era, worked with Maurice Tourneur on films such as The Last of the Mohicans (1920) and with Ernst Lubitsch on The Marriage Circle (1924) and Lady Windermere's Fan (1925). Although credited as an assistant cameraman on The Phantom of the Opera (1925), he reputedly set up many important shots in that film. He spent much of his later career at Universal, working on everything from Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941) to Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). By the late 1950s, he was working mainly in television on shows such as Gilligan's Island.

Wow! From Max Linder to Gilligan's Island — now there's a career span.
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Here's a rundown of what you'll find on each DVD:

Rare Films of Max Linder

A Skater’s Debut (1905) = 4:21
His First Cigar (1906) = 5:05
Max Gets Stuck Up (1906) = 3:01
Max Takes a Bath (1906) = 4:38
Legend of Ponchinella (1906) = 7:32
Max’s Hat (1908) = 8:55
Troubles of a Grass Widower (1908) = 9:48
Max and the Lady Doctor (1909) = 5:59
Max Fears the Dogs (1909) = 2:44
Max and the Quinquina (1911) = 16:44
Max Plays at Drama (1911) = 7:01
Max Juggling for Love (1912)     6:42
Max and his Dog (1912) -- 6:33
Max and the Statue (1912) = 9:58
Max and his Mother-in-Law (1912) = 24:12 (!!)
Be My Wife  (1921) = 13:33


Laugh with Max Linder
Boxing with Maurice Tourneur (1912) = 2:40
Love's Surprises (1913) = 6:13
Max Takes a Picture (1913) = 13:06
Max Sets the Style (1914) = 8:53
Seven Years Bad Luck (1921) = 61:52
Be My Wife  (1921) = 13:33

Both of these DVDs are available from Amazon. Laugh with Max Linder is also available from Netflix and on Amazon video on demand.

DVD Report: Charley Bowers

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Charley Bowers: The Rediscovery of an American Comic Genius
Co-produced by Image Entertainment (USA) and Lobster Films (France)
2-disc DVD; run time 149 mins.
2004

Several DVDs have come out in the past year or two that I should be blogging about, multi-disc sets of the work of Harry Langdon, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charley Chase, for example. Instead, I want to do some catching up and write about a DVD set that came out five years ago on the work of Charley Bowers (1889 – November 26, 1946) . Why? Because it’s exciting stuff, and because today is Thanksgiving and it was on this day 63 years ago that Bowers passed away in almost total obscurity. Let's see if I can show you why we should be thankful for his life's work.

I suspect that most of you are saying “who in the hell is Charley Bowers?” In brief, he was a cartoonist, animator, and silent film comedian who, between 1926 and 1931, created a series of short films (no features), sometimes labeled “novelty comedies,” that combined live action with stop-motion animation, and that display a unique comic imagination. While much of silent film comedy exhibits a certain formulaic sameness, Bowers is a refreshingly original thinker whose work I think you’ll love.

DVD Report: Buskers

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I used to buy more books than I'd ever have time to read; now I buy more DVDs than I have time to watch. A single movie with a couple of extra features is no big deal, it's those damn box sets! Silent film comedians are the worst. You used to have to frequent obscure film screenings to catch a glimpse of their work; now you can have all 47 shorts they were in, complete with learned commentary on where each scene was shot, who the cameraman was, and who the star was dating, all on your "bookshelf."

Hey, I'm not complaining exactly, but I thought it would be a good idea to use this blog to start sorting through what's on my shelves and what's destined to appear there soon, maybe even separate the wheat from the chaff, as we used to say back on the farm. It will no doubt get me buying more stuff, but at least this way I'll have to watch it.

Thus is born a new blog feature: DVD Report. And we start this feature with two intriguing but little known DVDs about street performance, Buskers: For Love or Money and Busker Central's Street Performance Video. Both DVDs showcase the work of street performers, primarily in the United States, but that's where the similarities end.



Buskers: For Love or Money, subtitled The Story of Street Performers, is a fairly sophisticated hour-long documentary created by Mad Chad Taylor, the Venice Beach chainsaw juggler who, it turns out, is also a skilled filmmaker. In fact, the movie has already been in several film festivals, even winning Best Film at the 2008 DIY (do it yourself) Festival.

Instead of using a narrator, Taylor lets the performers speak for themselves on just about everything pertaining to their lifestyle: love of performing; love of money; extracting money from audiences; unhappy childhoods; the steep learning curve; personal relationships; dealing with audiences; dealing with police; competing for prime spots; travel; unusual experiences; etc. And since street performers have more than their share of unusual experiences, the documentary is chock full of anecdotes worth the telling.

What makes the documentary move along so well is that Taylor has excellent footage to illustrate the commentary, as we travel from Venice Beach to San Francisco to New York to Amsterdam and back, watching street performers in action. When he talks about performance accidents, we see them. Unruly spectators, ditto. Impending rain ruining a street performer's day? He's got the shot of a performer desperately trying to finish his act and pass the hat before the crowds rush for shelter. And he edits it well.

Here's some sample footage:



Although there's a ton of performance shots on the DVD, it's definitely a highlight reel. There are no lengthy sequences, nothing like a complete act. We get to meet 96 performers, but none of them all that well. But I don't mean that as a criticism, because Taylor does an excellent job of weaving together all these stories and themes that make up the life of the street performer. Plus it's quite entertaining!





Busker Central's Street Performance Video is a less ambitious work, about 30 minutes long, with no discernible thru-line, most of it apparently shot at the Buskerfest in Boulder, Colorado (USA). The DVD is broken up into short (a minute or two) clips such as the following:



As you can see, these come across as short promos you might flash on a screen somewhere, but as a DVD it gets tiresome, like watching a reel of TV background footage. I'd rather see more of the performers actually performing and fewer canned transitions and cheesy video effects, or themes (Top Secret, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits) that have nothing to do with the subject matter. I don't want to sound harsh, it's all well intentioned and does make me want to go to the festival, but as a DVD the whole thing feels like a student project, big on tricks, short on content.

Should I Buy These?
You can buy Buskers: For Love or Money here for $25. Yes, that's a lot of money for an hour-long DVD, but it probably won't make a film festival near you or make it to Netflix. It's a niche-market DVD and — guess what, guys — you're the niche. So if you want filmmakers and DVD companies to produce work that's not just the standard commercial fare, I'd say once in a while you might want to forego that $5 or more you pay for a beer in a bar, go to Bottle King instead and drink on the street corner out of a brown paper bag, then put those extra bucks toward supporting work in the field. Just a thought....

As for Busker Central's Street Performance Video, the decision is easier because it's free! Just click here. Okay, it's $5 for postage and handling, but still, how can you go wrong? What you should definitely do, however, is to check out the Busker Central web site, which has a ton of goodies. You do have to register (also free), but it looks to be an excellent resource.
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Coming soon to DVD Report: the new Becoming Charley Chase dvd