Sad tale of Oakland comedian told in new book

October 8, 3:38 PMSF Silent Movie ExaminerThomas Gladysz

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"Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian of Silent Cinema," by Anthony
Balducci, has just been published by McFarland.

By Thomas Gladysz
SF Silent Film Examiner

Chances are, if you’re a fan of early film or early comedic actors, you’re only dimly aware of Lloyd Hamilton. Though he was never as popular as his silent film contemporaries Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Charley Chase, he was admired and even praised by those same greats. Some have called Hamilton a “comedian’s comedian.” And pretty much everyone who has seen his films agrees he was an original talent.

The reputation of Lloyd Hamilton – a once popular baby-faced comic with a trademark checkered cap - has not fared well since his death at the age of 43 in 1935. The reasons why are many.

Alcoholism, a troubled private life, missed opportunities, a touch of scandal, temporary banishment from Hollywood, and changing tastes all led to a decline in the comedian’s career. And as well, two years after his death, a studio fire destroyed many of Hamilton’s films. Not many survive, and of those, few are screened today.

Anthony Balducci, a first time author who wrote articles on silent comedy for Film Collector's World in the late 1970s, has now authored Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian of Silent Cinema (McFarland). It is a worthwhile, first ever look at a notable though neglected figure. It also goes a long way in returning the spotlight to a gifted comedian.

Hamilton was born in 1891. Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian of Silent Cinema explores the comedian’s early life and work, beginning with his typical turn-of-the-century childhood in Oakland.
Interestingly, Balducci notes that Hamilton’s uneventful early life set the comedian apart from most other early comedy stars – many of whom came from broken or poor families with theatrical backgrounds. Conversely, Hamilton’s middle-class family opposed his interest in the stage. And so, the portly comic began his days in show business as a theatre extra in San Francisco.

Hamilton entered film in the mid-Teens and soon gained success when teamed with Bud Duncan in a series of short films from the Kalem Studio known as Ham and Bud. Despite its often chaotic and unsophisticated humor, the series turned out to be somewhat popular. It lasted three years, and may be what Hamilton is best remembered for today among comedy aficionados.

Ham and Bud was one of the first comedy teams, with Hamilton playing the bigger and more crass half of the pair. Among their films is Ham at the Fair (1915), which was shot on location at the Panama-Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco.

Eventually, as his talents developed and his ambition grew, Hamilton struck out on his own. Over the years, he would work for smaller companies like the Frontier Motion Picture Company as well as larger concerns like Lubin and Fox-Sunshine. In 1920, he established Mermaid Comedies, which were distributed by Educational. And by the mid-1920s, Hamilton's popularity had grown to such a degree that he established his own production company. In 1924, he starred in his first feature-length film, The Darker Self. The film, which contained negative racial references, fared poorly at the box office and Hamilton’s career limped along through the end of the decade.

Despite an amusing on-screen presence, Hamilton private life was troubled. Balducci details Hamilton’s many changes in fortune. The actor was married a number of times, suffered money problems, and drank too much – though his drinking seemingly didn’t affect his performances - at least at first. Eventually, these myriad troubles caught up with the comedian and helped derail his career.

Hamilton was well known for his trademark checkered cap. He is depicted wearing just such a cap on the cover of Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian of Silent Cinema. It’s telling, then, when Balducci relates the time near the end of Hamilton’s life when the comic, hard up for work and short of cash, accepted an endorsement deal to appear in public wearing a certain manufacturer’s very different straw hat.

Hamilton's last starring series was a string of two-reel comedies produced by Mack Sennett. In them, he continued to play the bewildered and often hapless victim of circumstance, as in Too Many Highballs (1933), where Hamilton tries to park his car and keeps getting boxed in by other motorists. Circumstance, it seems, was never in Hamilton’s favor – whether on screen or off.

As Balducci notes, Hamilton’s long career touched many lives. Balducci’s book concludes with capsule biographies of several of Hamilton’s key cinematic compatriots – everyone from Billy Bevan, Polly Moran and Vera Steadman to Ruth Roland, Del Henderson, Alf Goulding, William Beaudine and Alfred Santell. It’s a useful mosaic.

During his career, Hamilton appeared in at least 250 films – mostly shorts as well as a few full length films. Another useful appendix in Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian of Silent Cinema features extensive, detailed filmographies of Hamilton’s prolific work in film – along with notice of the film’s availability. There is also an in-depth analysis of Hamilton's important lost feature A Self-Made Failure (1924).

Many of Hamilton’s films are lost, though some that survive can be seen on a series of DVD’s released in 2006 by Looser than Loose, a company with a specialty in early film comedy. Their five disc collection, "HAM": The Lost Magic of Lloyd Hamilton, features twelve Ham and Bud shorts, eight silent shorts, four sound shorts, an animated photo gallery, glass slide show, bonus footage and more, as well as liner notes by Steve Massa and piano accompaniment composed and played by Ben Model. [This reviewer has not seen these discs, and can’t vouch for their quality. Nevertheless, they seem to be the best set going.]

Notably, the author of Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian of Silent Cinema had the cooperation of surviving members of Hamilton’s family, and this book features interesting and rare photos from throughout the comedian’s life and career. One with local interest, on page 133, depicts the comedian humorously posed next to a sign which reads “Invest Your Money in Petaluma, The Worlds EggBasket.” It seems like good advice.