Old movie buffs often visit Hollenbeck Park in Boyle Heights near Downtown Los Angeles, because it’s the location where Laurel and Hardy filmed their classic short subject “Men O’ War.” But Long Beach resident Brent E. Walker knows Hollenbeck better as the frequent locale for many of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s and Mabel Normand’s silent comedy shorts. Poor Brent, he can’t go anywhere in L.A. without seeing the ghosts of Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Kops cavorting down the streets—if his new hardcover book from McFarland, “Mack Sennett’s Fun Factory,” is any indication. Of course, he probably wouldn’t have it any other way.
I know Brent a little too well to write an unbiased review of his latest effort, so I’ll just describe it instead. At 663 pages, this career study of the pioneer film producer is the girth and weight of a one-volume encyclopedia. It traces Sennett’s work from his entry into films with D.W. Griffith at a salary of $5 per day, to the formation of his own studio in 1912—and his launch of Chaplin’s film career two years later—to his retirement as the much lauded and self-mythologizing King of Comedy.
The filmography, which makes up a full third of the book, includes every known film Sennett worked on in any capacity, including some 1,002 Keystone and Sennett Comedies produced between 1912-1933; details where known include not only release dates but filming dates, length, production costs, and shooting locations. There are extensive biographical sketches for hundreds of Sennett stalwarts, including Billy Bevan, Chester Conklin, Louise Fazenda, Hank Mann, Phyllis Haver, Blanche Payson, and even Cameo the Dog.
Lloyd Hamilton starred in four 1932-33 Sennett shorts near the end of his career, the last one prophetically titled “Too Many Highballs.” Not unlike his drinking buddy Charley Chase, who also succumbed to alcoholism at a young age, Hamilton was a highly regarded clown in the ‘20s, now undeservedly obscure; it’s been argued that he belongs in the pantheon of greats alongside Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Harry Langdon, though much of his work is lost. (Two of his shorts can be seen on the DVD box set, “American Slapstick v.2.”)
Anthony Balducci’s “Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian of Silent Cinema,” new in paperback from McFarland, unearths much about this enigmatic personality, from his beginnings in the Bay Area to his tragically early demise. Though largely forgotten, Ham inspired Jackie Gleason (in his characterizations of Ralph Kramden and the Pool Soul), and to a lesser extent served as a model for Curly Howard of the Three Stooges, Huntz Hall of the Bowery Boys and other comedians.
Glenn Tryon, a silent comic even more obscure than Hamilton, springs back to life in “A Hero for a Night” (1927), released on DVD by Sunrise Silents—a company determined to rescue such films from oblivion. This amusing feature, packed with visual gags, doesn’t deserve to be forgotten. Tryon, who stars as a brash transatlantic aviator modeling himself on Lindbergh, is reminiscent of Harold Lloyd; signed by producer Hal Roach to replace Lloyd, he proved too tame to make the grade and ended up becoming a gag writer. His leading lady, Patsy Ruth Miller, co-starred opposite Lon Chaney Sr. in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
More from Jordan:
‘American Slapstick’ DVD sets rescue silent clowns from obscurity
Charley Chase’s silent comedies jump back to life on DVD
Silent ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ Disney ‘Snow White,’ Tezuka Osamu On Video
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