Ben Turpin

Dance of the Cookoos is merged a cinematic cross section with the high points from almost 100 works of Laurel & Hardy, into an original framework action

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

A compilation featuring comedic stars of the silent era including Fatty Arbuckle, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Charley Chase, and Laurel and Hardy.

Compilation of comedy sketches from the comedy kings Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Danny Kaye & Bing Crosby.

A compilation featuring comedic stars of the silent era including Will Rogers, Laurel and Hardy, and the Keystone Cops.

Laurel is a Scottish reporter suspected of being a spy by police detective James Finlayson. Although trailed by the latter, Stan, who is reporting on the movie world, manages to be hired by Mack Sennett. He makes his debut in Nevada, in the middle of gold diggers. After managing to clear his name he becomes, with Oliver Hardy, a big comedy star.

Stan and Ollie work in a horn factory. Ollie starts having violent fits every time he hears a horn. His doctor prescribes a restful sea voyage. Mayhem ensues.

This film is a compilation, with narration by Steve Allen, of comedies from the old Mack Sennett silent studio. Sennett, himself, appears in a cameo at the end of the film.

The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years. Finally there are tributes to the Screen Snapshots series by Cecil De Mille, Walt Disney, Louella Parsons and Rosalind Russell.

Sardonic commentary over an abridged version of DOWN ON THE FARM (1920).

Oliver is making plans to marry his sweetheart Dulcy with Stan as his best man, but the plans are thwarted when Dulcy's father sees a picture of Ollie and forbids the marriage. The couple plan to elope, and run away to a Justice of the Peace. After typical Laurel and Hardy blundering, they manage to sneak the girl away from her father's house.

Jimmy Durante asks popular song writing team Mack Gordon and Harry Revel to demonstrate some of their songs. There is interplay with impersonator Florence Desmond, Ben Turpin, Rudy Vallee and many others. Sometimes this film is incorrectly labelled as A-2. In the Criteron Pictures rerelease, this has an incorrect copyright date of 1932.

To impress his fiancee's aunt, a young man tries to become king in a small kingdom, but the people there have already crowned one, who has won this honor by gambling. So he plans a coup d'etat. He tries to achieve this with a bomb, but then something goes wrong...

Rex, a wild stallion, and Rinty, a police dog, are pals. Their master , John Sheldon, is framed for murder, and Alice Ingram plans to race Rex for money to pay for John's legal defense. Meantime, Frank Nolan, who has falsely accused John, sets out to steal Rex for himself.

Basically this is a commercial for Hollywood's Lido Lounge and for MGM contract players. The Lido is a large watering hole; we visit one afternoon with an orchestra playing, all sorts of stars and would-be stars sitting at tables near the pool alongside paying customers, and bathing beauties parading and diving. The Lido's manager, Reggy Denny, introduces the stars in the audience. He's sometimes interrupted by someone who does a bit, sings a song, or otherwise entertains: most of these are novelty acts. By the end, everyone's having a swell time.

Starting in 1913 movie director Connors discovers singer Molly Adair. As she becomes a star she marries an actor, so Connors fires them. She asks for him as director of her next film. Many silent stars shown making the transition to sound.

A grocery clerk, longing to become a cowboy actor, goes to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune. Unfortunately, his acting ability is non-existent.

A short featuring many stars

A small country on the verge of bankruptcy is persuaded to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a means of raising money.

Running Hollywood is a comedy short.

Now hear this. The studio that gave the cinema its voice offered 1929 audiences a chance to see and hear multiple silent-screen favorites for the first time in a gaudy, grandiose music-comedy-novelty revue that also included Talkie stars, Broadway luminaries and of course, Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay hosts a jamboree that, among its 70+ stars, features bicyclers, boxing champ Georges Carpentier, chorines in terpsichore kickery, sister acts, Myrna Loy in two-strip Technicolor as an exotic Far East beauty, John Barrymore in a Shakespearean soliloquy (adding an on-screen voice to his legendary profile for the first time) and Winnie Lightner famously warbling the joys of Singing in the Bathtub. Watch, rinse, repeat!

Ben Turpin's rival marries his college sweetheart played by Phyllis Haver.

Angela comes to Hollywood with only two things: Her dream to become a movie star, and Grandpa. She leaves an Aunt, a brother, Grandma, and her longtime boyfriend back in Centerville. Despite seeing major movie stars around every corner, and knocking on every casting office door in town, at the end of her first day she is still unemployed. To her horror, when she arrives back at their hotel, she finds that Grandpa has been cast in a movie by William DeMille and quickly becomes a star during the ensuing weeks. Her family, worried that Angela and Grandpa are getting into trouble, come to Hollywood to drag them back home. In short order Aunt, Grandma, brother, boyfriend and even the parrot become superstars, but Angela is still unemployed...

The queen of mythical Sylvania marries a courtier, who finds his new life unsatisfying

The day starts off as any normal day on Roach's farm, where Teddy, the farmhouse dog, is doing more productive work than everyone else combined. But the day changes when Roach's farmhand sees an opportunity to be the knight in shining armor to Louise, Roach's daughter, who he wants to marry.

The plot has Ben Turpin as the prince of a mythical country who is being forced to wed a princess not of his choosing. In 1947, an outfit headed by J.J.Balaber, called Grand International Pictures, acquired 1,300,000 feet of Mack Sennet films with the intentions of editing 26 short comedies from them. The first of these was a 13 minute short edited from "When a Man's A Prince" and released on June 18,1947 as the first of the "Americana Comedy Film Classic Series."

A short packed with more stars and gags than most features of its day, this film delivered a gaggle of guffaws!

An oil heir and the daughter of a social climbing family are set to marry.

Unlikely Lothario, the less-than-dashing crossed-eyed Ben Turpin, finds himself pursued by many beautiful ladies.

Cyclone Bill is the popular sheriff of Mustang Gulch, where "a gun in the hand is worth two on the hip." Bill keeps the town free of criminals, and is also in love with the mayor's daughter. But when Yukon Jake brings his gang to town, causing trouble and kidnapping Bill's girl, it looks as if Bill might have more trouble than he can handle.

Ben Turpin, a self-proclaimed "lady killer" finds himself in a difficult romantic predicament. Currently engaged to a woman described as a "gold-digger" (played by Madeleine Hurlock), Ben decides he must first end his relationship with his former lover, a showgirl and theater dancer named Alma Bennett.

Where's My Wandering Boy This Evening? is a comedy short released in 1923

In one of the handful of Sennett/ Paramount Films to survive we visit a traveling medicine show.

In this silent comedy, a pretty department store cashier is charged with a robbery that occurred overnight at the store. However, circumstantial evidence points to the store's soda clerk having committed both the $10,000 robbery and the assumed murder of the store's nightwatchman, who is missing.

A pretty harem girl is rescued by a U. S. Navy officer. Whilst fleeing from the guards the girl takes refuge in the rooms of the notorious Rodney St. Clair, an erring Knight, who is proud of his long list of feminine conquests. But the Navy officer again comes to her rescue, and Sir Rodney is left to marry the harem's fattest woman after she puts a love potion in his drink.

Pitfalls of a Big City is a 1923 short comedy

A college football player is injured by a jealous teammate during practice, but comes back unexpectedly to play for his team in the season's key game.

The Wife's Relations, The Lost Heiress, is a 1928 American silent comedy film directed by Maurice Marshall and starring Shirley Mason, Ben Turpin and Gaston Glass.

An employee in a theater showing Valentino's "The Shiek" daydreams about himself playing Valentino's role.

Lifeguard Ben Turpin tries to keep order at the beach, where tennis players James Finlayson and Charles Conklin vie for the affection of Marie Prevost and get involved in antics including fishing and a wild boat ride in this Mack Sennett two-reeler. Roughly only half of the film still exists.

Sam, a young man in a small town, is accused of being a thief. Unable to prove his innocence--and not knowing that he's being framed by a local villain to keep him away from pretty young Mary, the town beauty whom the villain wants for himself--he leaves town and goes to Hollywood to become an actor. He eventually returns home to town as a star, but once again finds himself the victim of the town villain, who this time abducts sweet young Mary. Sam must use all his acting skills to track down the villain and save Mary.

Turpin plays a candidate who poses as the worker's friend but spends hi time buttering up wealthy women and seizing upn any opportunity to womanise.

After a fight with his neighbor over their Model Ts, Ben's tuxedo is ruined. Unfortunately, the suit he gets as a replacement doesn't hold up too well.

When one of the actors on a movie set doesn't show up, Charlie gets his chance to be on camera and replaces the actor. While waiting, he plays in a dice game and gets on many people's nerves. When he finally gets to act, he ruins his scene, accidentally destroys the set, and tears the skirt of the star of the movie.

A gypsy seductress is sent to sway a goofy officer to allow a smuggling run.

Walking along with his bulldog, Charlie finds a "good luck" horseshoe just as he passes a training camp advertising for a boxing partner "who can take a beating." After watching others lose, Charlie puts the horseshoe in his glove and wins. The trainer prepares Charlie to fight the world champion. A gambler wants Charlie to throw the fight. He and the trainer's daughter fall in love.

After a visit to a pub, Charlie and Ben cause a ruckus at a posh restaurant. Charlie later finds himself in a compromising position at a hotel with the head waiter's wife.

Behind enemy lines, Captain Bob White disguises himself as a woman in order to fool members of the German High Command, including the Kaiser himself.

Wallace Beery dresses up as a lady to fool the man.

No synopsis available yet.

Right now while everyone is thinking of war, comes this two reel comedy whose plot is based on an invention to revolutionize warfare. A torpedo-bomb, which, upon exploding in the camp of the enemy, causes the soldiers to laugh till they drop from fatigue, is the very heart and centre of the plot. Foreign spies try to secure the bomb.

A henpecked husband and his wife vacation at a seaside resort. While he's enjoying the view of the local bathing beauties, he has to be careful not to let his wife see him enjoying himself.

Because he believes in education, a ranch owner hires a school teacher from the east and opens a school for his cowboys. The teacher is admired by all of the cowboys, and by one in particular, an outlaw, who frightens all the pupils one morning by writing "school" with bullet holes on the blackboard. Broncho Billy steps in and sends him over the county line.

Café de Luxe's owner comes back to his restaurant after a vacation.

The whimsical adventures of the impetuous Sheriff Nell (Polly Moran), who keeps Triggerville in line with an iron fist. But her heart is set on Jack, the saloon barman, and Black Pete, a notorious crook.

Sweedie, the cook, reads an ad in the newspaper for a maid to give her services in exchange for college tuition. She applies and is accepted.

A businessman's jealous wife suspects he is running around with other women. The tables are turned when a friend of the family involves her in a stock scheme. Her husband begins to suspect that she and her "partner" are involved in more than just business, not knowing that the scheme has gone bad and she has lost all the money she invested.

An inventor and his assistant build a robot that looks like their janitor, and everyone tries to profit off the invention.

Sweedie, the cook, decides that it would be nice to learn to swim, so goes to a "dry land" swimming class for instruction. She is thrown out of the class after fighting with several of the members and goes home, where she fills the bathtub with water and proceeds to learn to swim.

The custom of young women "tagging" men on the public streets (on a day specially set aside and called "Tag Day") to secure funds for various charitable purposes is the basis for this Comedy short.