Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett (January 17, 1880 – November 5, 1960) was a Canadian-born American director and was known as the innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the "King of Comedy". His short "Wrestling Swordfish" was awarded the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1932 and he earned an Academy Honorary Award in 1937. Born as Mikall (or Michael) Sinnott in Danville, Quebec, Canada, the son of Irish Catholic immigrant farmers. His father was a blacksmith in the small Eastern Townships village. When he was 17 years old his family moved to Connecticut. The family lived for a time in Northampton, Massachusetts, where, according to his autobiography, Sennett first got the idea to go on stage after seeing a vaudeville show. He claimed that the most respected lawyer in town, Northampton mayor (and future President of the United States) Calvin Coolidge, as well as Sennett's own mother, tried to talk him out of his theatrical ambitions. In New York City, Sennett became an actor, singer, dancer, clown, set designer and director for Biograph.
Producer
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That Little Band of Gold
Fatty weds Mabel though, unfortunately, married life is a bit of a letdown for her since she's stuck at home while he goes galavanting drunkenly around town at all hours. When he reluctantly takes her and Mother out to the opera, his boorish behavior attracts the whole...Watch Movie
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Mabel and Fatty's Married Life
Two of early cinema's biggest comedy stars find matrimony none-too-tranquil in this one-reeler, which begins with them incurring the wrath of an organ-grinder and his monkey. Spooked, Mabel then thinks they've also invited a visit from some brazen burglars into their home,...Watch Movie
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Ambrose's Sour Grapes
Mack Swain is the one with sour grapes in this Keystone comedy of errors. After showing himself to be a coward when he lets another man rescue his girlfriend from a mugging, Mack's only recourse is to appeal to the chivalrous gentleman’s jealousy. This gets easier when the...Watch Movie
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Ambrose's Fury
When Mack Swain, suffering from his domineering wife’s orders, starts flirting with the neighbor, AMBROSE'S FURY slowly rolls to a boil. He arranges to meet the young woman for some extramarital swimming and the ocean setting invigorates the slapstick in no time. The young woman’s clothes are...Watch Movie
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When Ambrose Dared Walrus
Hefty Ambrose (Mack Swain) is an unlikely acrobat who checks into the Walrus Hotel with his petite trapeze-artist wife. Proprietors Mr. and Mrs. Walrus, whose marital union is no more harmonious than their guests', suffer several embarrassing encounters with the newcomers....Watch Movie
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Ambrose's Lofty Perch
Keystone comedy star Mack Swain takes advantage of his rotund figure to play a king in search of a queen. He selects his fiancé by process of elimination but the one he chooses already has another suitor, a second-rate Robin Hood. This Robin is a mean shot with a bow and arrow...Watch Movie
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Skylarking
Mack Sennett’s frenzied slapstick style gets a spectacular lift in this high-flying comic fantasy. A hapless inventor named Victor Edison sets out to demonstrate his latest creation, a cross between an automobile and hot air balloon. After a few misfires he and another man’s wife set out soaring...Watch Movie
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Little Billy's Triumph
The first of several “Little Billy” films produced by Mack Sennett starring Billy Jacobs as a pint-sized hellion, LITTLE BILLY’S TRIUMPH pioneers the boisterous terrain later taken up by OUR GANG. A couple of older bullies steal Billy’s ice cream money. Enterprising rascals,...Watch Movie
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Fatty's Spooning Days
Fatty Arbuckle stars as an incorrigible husband who begins by flirting with the maid and ends up chasing after another man’s wife in the park. The other husband spots Fatty’s wife (Mabel Normand) unattended and so the marriage circle goes round and round. Those indefatigable...Watch Movie
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Willful Ambrose
WILLFUL AMBROSE’s farcical plot may not be much for continuity but all the better to focus on the slapstick pageantry of slipups, extramarital flirtations and enough thumps for a game of Whack-A-Mole. Mack Swain stars as a beer-guzzling, sharpshooting lout. Louise Fazenda is his wife and pretty...Watch Movie
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Fatty's Suitless Days
Fatty Arbuckle needs a suit to attend the ball. He snatches another man’s finery off the clothesline, squeezing himself into the jacket and improvising a cummerbund. What goes around comes around which, in Fatty’s case, means he’ll find himself at the ball without pants....Watch Movie
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Wandering Willies
Percy Nudge (Australian-born Billy Bevan) and Dusty Duncan (Scotsman Andy Clyde) are two hoboes playing “hooky from the hoosegow” (that's "jail" to you and me). Desperate for some chow, they opt to impersonate a police officer and a baby, two types of diners most likely to get...Watch Movie
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Won by a Fowl
This Keystone-Triangle three-reeler, produced by silent comedy maestro Mack Sennett's company and the shorter-lived major studio that briefly flourished in the late-1910s, features a cast of lesser-remembered players. It's a sunny day, which some choose to spend at the park kissing babies or...Watch Movie
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Ambrose's Nasty Temper
Ambrose's amorous antics at the garment factory get him fired. In retaliation, he hires a couple of crooks to menace his boss but they mistakenly target the boss' daughter he fancies instead. Her mortal peril necessitates a call to the police so it's the Keystone Kops to the...Watch Movie
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Bombs and Brides
When a new reformist mayor refuses to cave to corruption, his opponents plot terroristic reprisal. Their efforts go awry in very goofy ways (including some wild stunts). This rambunctious comedy from Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios features his stars Charles Murray as a...Watch Movie
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Flirty Four-Flushers
Ambitious diner waitress Aggie (Madeline Hurlock), "weary of carving her career out of T-bone steaks," wins $500 in an essay contest by waxing eloquent on "how to disguise corned-beef hash." She decides to invest that bankroll posing as a debutant at an upscale resort in order...Watch Movie
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All Wet
"Snub" Pollard plays a hick whose pa packs him off to his aunt's home in the big city. He fits in awkwardly with her hoity society world. News of his oil-well inheritance makes the more mercenary flappers pay attention, notably a vampish cousin (named Cleopatra, no less). It's a funny...Watch Movie
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Her Fame and Shame
Louise Fazenda was a natural comedienne (not unlike Carol Burnett) who rose quickly to the front ranks of early silent comedy kingpin Mack Sennett's Keystone company. Here she gets a prime role as the starstruck daughter of a provincial hotel and cafe's owner. At their...Watch Movie
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The Plumber
House calls don't come much messier than the one answered by a plumber (Charles Murray) at the upstanding bourgeois home of the Felixes, where a bathroom gusher is making life very wet. The tradesman proceeds to get likewise, nipping into the family's hooch supply with disastrous results. Murray...Watch Movie
Actor
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His Trust
HIS TRUST, subtitled "the faithful devotion and self- sacrifice of an old negro servant," is something of a race-relations precursor to D.W. Griffith's better-known BIRTH OF A NATION. The aforementioned servant is played in blackface, unfortunately, but the character's portrayal might surprise...Watch Movie
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The Usurer
A short film by the remarkable D.W. Griffith that is as topical today as the day it was made. The usurer (more commonly known as a moneylender) is greedy enough to foreclose on families that have no other means to survive. In a bit of turnabout, he suddenly discovers that money isn't the most...Watch Movie
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In the Border States
A little girl for the Union shelters a Confederate soldier, thereby initiating a chain of events that symbolically repairs the damages wrought by the Civil War. D.W. Griffith takes advantage of pictorial landscapes to stage his battle scenes and his famous parallel editing...Watch Movie
Story
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Skylarking
Mack Sennett’s frenzied slapstick style gets a spectacular lift in this high-flying comic fantasy. A hapless inventor named Victor Edison sets out to demonstrate his latest creation, a cross between an automobile and hot air balloon. After a few misfires he and another man’s wife set out soaring...Watch Movie
Writer
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Flirty Four-Flushers
Ambitious diner waitress Aggie (Madeline Hurlock), "weary of carving her career out of T-bone steaks," wins $500 in an essay contest by waxing eloquent on "how to disguise corned-beef hash." She decides to invest that bankroll posing as a debutant at an upscale resort in order...Watch Movie
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