Charles Avery

Returning to the family ranch after a spell as a circus performer, Art Hayes finds that a crooked ranch foreman has forced his father into bankruptcy.

Hank Kinney, a ranger, witnesses the accidental death of a man and the survival of a motherless infant. Kinney asks the county sheriff to process adoption papers and goes with the child to take up the mining claim left him by his father. Sam Bruce, the richest and most hated man in Copperville, tries to jump the claim and swears vengeance when Kinney kicks him off the property. Kinney strikes up a friendship with Ruth Buxley, daughter of the general store proprietor; and Bruce, who covets the girl, instigates a rumor that Hank is unfit to rear a child and sends the sheriff's posse to get the the baby.

After crashing his plane in the wilderness, a young airborne forest ranger is nursed back to health by a mountain man and his pretty daughter in this 18-chapter serial from Universal.

A strong wind blows a city slicker and a local girl together. A Joe Rock Comedy

At the start of his career Harry Depp appeared often in short comedies, and was employed by Mack Sennett’s Keystone Company in 1916-17. Very little information is available on The Bookworm Turns but, as Depp was particularly well-known for appearing in movies that required him to don female clothing, we might expect to see him in drag at some point in this one.

His Lying Heart is a silent comedy short.

Roscoe writes of his love and announces that he will call on Irene with the ring and ask her parents' consent to their marriage. Father and mother are willing, but decide to give Roscoe a scare before accepting him for a son-in-law. Father assumes a gruff attitude but melts at the right time and Roscoe departs in high glee to prepare for a masked ball at which the engagement is to be announced. Irene jokes him about his size but he warns her that he will fool her by the mystery of his disguise. On the way home in his automobile Roscoe drives over a cliff and is taken to a hospital. There he is, out of his mind, as the guests begin to assemble at the ball.

A waiter tricks his way into command of a sub in order to rob a ship carrying gold bullion.

Mr. and Mrs. Gussle get up to some hijinks in this Keystone comedy.

Another of the fast and furious slapstick comedies produced for Keystone that is long on speed and mugging and short on jokes. Gussle and his wife decide to go mountain climbing and shoot at each other in a not very interesting effort. Syd does not even manage his usual graceful surprise movements in this, but spends, like most of the cast, a lot of time falling down.

This film concerns the adventures of Gussle, played by Sydney Chaplin, in Big Bear Lake area of California. The picture opens with our hero riding a mule through a creek bed, when he is set upon by some robbers. Gussle outsmarts them by attempting to hand over his goods by stretching across the stream, but dropping the goods into the water thereby making the robber also fall in. He makes his way to an inn and recounts his experiences to the other guests and then they all go out and spend time playing in the snow. Some trick photography is used to make it appear that Gussle is making a mule walk backwards.

Gussle Rivals Jonah is a silent comedy

Gussle (Syd Chaplin) comes home with a cute little dog but doesn't want the wife to see it--leading up to a rather funny bit you'll have to see for yourself. The marriage, at first, seems ideal and Gussle and his wife seem devoted. However, it soon seems that this is an act for Syd and it's obvious he's quite the philanderer. Eventually, the wife catches on and sets out to catch him--leading to a rather cute and unexpected ending.

A poor man finds a bag with a lot of money resulting in a change of lifestyle. But not without complications...

After arriving in a hostile Western town, Hogan meets the Wild West head-on. A shack loaded with dynamite aids his return to urbanity. "Plenty of western color helps to make the production an attractive one apart from its comic attributes. In this film Charles Murray as Hogan is his usual comical self." -The Moving Picture World, March 13, 1915.

Charles Murray out romancing in the park.

One of the tenants is giving a "rag" party for his dancing friends causing the plaster from the ceiling to fall on a couple (Frank Hayes and Billie Brockwell) who are eating dinner in their apartment below. The irate couple call the manager, Bobby Dunn, to repair the ceiling. He arrives immediately and the balance of the picture is devoted to the destruction wreaked by the plasterer who is not only extremely careless but inebriated as well.

This extremely corny film has him disguising himself in drag to get a job as a governess and access to his overprotected sweetheart. The old father falls for him, needless to say and there is another suitor.

Fatty, his wife and mother-in-law are on a ferry to Catalina Island for an outing. So are Mabel and her father. Mabel and Fatty flirt with each other, and Fatty tosses her father overboard, thinking he is another suitor. The boat docks and the two go their separate ways. Mack Swain tries to pick Mabel up, too. All go to rent bathing suits, Fatty locks Mack in a dressing room with mother-in-law. Fatty and Mabel feed a large fish to a seal at the water's edge, and then engage in some graceful and comic diving. Swain, Avery, Durfee and Davenport see them diving and corner them...everyone's relationship to each other is revealed. —Ben Model, ben@silentclowns.com

Her Last Chance

A man goes in hot pursuit of the shoe store clerk he feels has made inappropriate advances towards his wife.

Mabel tries to sell hot dogs at a car race, but isn't doing a very good job at it. She sets down the box of hot dogs and leaves them for a moment. Charlie finds them and gives them away to the hungry spectators at the track as Mabel frantically tries to find her lost box of hot dogs. Mabel finds out that Charlie has stolen them and sends the police after him. Chaos ensues.

Love and Salt Water

To show his girl how brave he is, Pug challenges the champion to a fight. Charlie referees, trying to avoid contact with the two monsters.

Charlie, competing with his rival's race car, offers Mabel a ride on his motorcycle but drops her in a puddle. He also kidnaps his rival before the race. But Mabel decides to take the wheels in his place, thus causing a threat to Charlie. As the race progresses, despite a very late start, Mabel manages to gain a lead of three laps. Charlie with his henchmen, tries to sabotage the race by using oil and bombs on the track. They seem to succeed for a while, but their dirty tricks were not enough to stop the high-spirited Mabel from winning the race.

Roscoe is a family man at the seaside, lumbered with a shrewish wife and an extremely annoying young son. He meets up with a charming young lady in a bathing costume, and the two of them break into a charming and delightful dance. Unfortunately, the bathing beauty has a husband with pistols...

The Chicken Chaser is a 1914 movie starring Roscoe Arbuckle and Charles Avery.

In a dance hall, two members of the orchestra and a tipsy dancer fight over the hat check girl.

The Water Dog is a 1914 American short comedy film directed by and starring Fatty Arbuckle.

Moving Picture World categorized the film as “a nonsense number”, but Normand's Won in a Closet, her second as director, displays her burgeoning talent. Mabel’s father, the country constable, is smitten with the mother of the boy Mabel imagines “her ideal”. The young couple’s romance is disrupted first by two rival “cut-ups” and then by misapprehension that a tramp is hiding in a closet at the mother’s home. In reality, the mother herself takes refuge in the closet to escape the constable’s attentions.

Mabel has two suitors - an oily con man, whom she mocks in a very funny scene where she is shown twiddling a fake moustache and making her feelings very clearly felt. Even in this early comedy her natural fun comes through. The one she really loves is clumsy yokel Ford Sterling, who is determined to buy an oil well that the con man has for sale. The conman gets a local fellow to pour oil over the property. Ford falls for it and buys it - Mabel and he are to be married. Then the fellow confesses that it was just a scam - there was no oil.

His Sister's Kids is a 1913 movie starring Roscoe Arbuckle and Minta Durfee.

A Ride for a Bride is a 1913 movie starring Roscoe Arbuckle and Virginia Kirtley.

Fatty rescues the daughter of the police commisioner and is given a job as an officer as a reward, but its not all its cracked up to be!

Two rivals for Mabel's hand play a series of dirty tricks on each other. Finally, one of them gets Mabel alone and is about to marry her, but his rival comes up with a strange scheme to stop them. Soon the Keystone Kops arrive on the scene, and chaos quickly ensues.

Fatty induces wife to let him take a day off to go to the celebration at San Diego. He has a wonderful time, flirting with the girls, breaking up a parade, fighting the police force and falling into the fountain with him, escapes, and with the crowd after him, leaps into the river. Here he rescues a little boy and becomes a hero. He goes home to wife in a bedraggled condition, tells of rescue and is set upon a pedestal. Wife, as a reward, takes him to the movies at night and sees husband flirting and fighting in the fountain, where some enterprising cameraman caught him. That explaining, as she thought, the bedraggled state in which he arrived home, she turns and beats him all the way home.

The scene is laid for a quiet little wedding. The guests are waiting for Fatty and an ancient maid to be made one. Fatty's rival appears and breaks up the wedding. A lemon meringue pie battle ensues, with the rival the victor. He carries the bride away. A most sensational and ludicrous finish is when he sees Fatty at the foot of a precipitous cliff. In a fit of rage he throws the bride from the top of the cliff at him, who lands unscathed in Fatty's arms.

An unscrupulous doctor tries to drum up business by having the sidewalk in front of his house covered with banana skins, inviting slip-and-fall injuries. Guess you couldn't get sued for that in 1913. Later, he mistakenly gives a patient some poison for medicine, causing her father to blackjack the quack.

A husband who has spent a convivial night is sleeping off the effects in bed while his devoted wife ministers for him.

A young man falls in love with his mother's kitchen maid, Mabel. But his mother objects strongly, and arranges for him to meet another young woman whom she considers more suitable. Mabel confronts the young woman, and is dismissed from her position. Later, when the young man learns about the new career that Mabel has found, he begins to act in an agitated and unpredictable manner.

Fatty's Day Off is a 1913 movie starring Roscoe Arbuckle and Charles Avery.

Fatty rescues Mabel twice: first, from the unwelcome attentions of a masher, then from a runaway observation balloon.

When a girl delivering expensive garments loses them to some Irish shanty town kids, her boss, a Jewish clothier, is livid and a fight breaks out. Soon the melee spreads to the whole neighborhood with brick throwing merging into bomb throwing, with the sides on clearly ethnic lines.

Mabel and Roscoe love each other, but her father likes another boy. A rather sissified young man. Roscoe and Mabel stages an accident.

Love and Rubbish is a 1913 movie starring Ford Sterling and Charles Avery.

The Telltale Light is a 1913 movie starring Mabel Normand and Roscoe Arbuckle.

Safe in jail is a 1913 movie starring Ford Sterling and Edgar Kennedy.

Rastus and the Game Cock is a 1913 movie starring Ford Sterling and Mack Sennett.

Willy is a rather effeminate young man, and is abused by the town bully. He suspects that the bully is a coward at heart, so disguises himself as a bandit and shoots up the town.

This early Keystone has Pete spying on his neighbor's wife through one of those little knotholes in a fence. The neighbor (Sterling) notices and chases him all over town with sheriff and family close behind. Fatty Arbuckle plays the peeper's wife(!).

Henry is a big, fat country boy with three passions. He likes eggs, milk and girls. He steals the eggs from the nests, sucks their contents, and refills the shells with water. When the family sit down to breakfast and the shells are broken the crime is discovered and Farmer Jones places a big bear trap, covered with straw, in front of the nests.

An amusing burlesque of gang fighters. The police go after them, one by one, and each guardian of the peace is caught and despoiled of his clothing and compelled to return to the station.

A new electric chair has been installed in the prison, and the officials impatiently await the first execution. The victim, with careless disregard for their feelings, makes his escape from the prison. The sleuth goes in pursuit, and finding the discarded convict's garb dons it as a disguise, hoping to meet the hunted man and ingratiate himself. Prison guards capture the sleuth, and disliking to disappoint the waiting crowd, decide to execute him. He is placed in the chair and the current turned on, but he stubbornly resists death. The current is doubled and trebled, to no avail. Meanwhile the real criminal has been captured, and he is brought back in time to save the sleuth from his perilous position.

Algie secures a job on the force. A new chief of police is appointed, who wears a soft hat and a frock coat. A woman reports the theft of her watch by a thief with a soft hat and a frock coat and Algie goes out looking for the thief. He meets the chief of police and arrests him after a chase and a fight, and handcuffs his prisoner to a telegraph pole while he goes for assistance. The Captain's consternation can be imagined when he arrives with his men and finds his chief a prisoner.

A young farm maid overhears two cow-hands talking in the barn, and she becomes convinced they’re about to rob her. She barricades herself in a room and calls the police. Her call wakes the chief, who rallies the country justice constabulary and they set off toward the farm, in steam-car and on foot. Meanwhile, the maiden’s parents rush to save her. Everything points toward a showdown in the barn, where no one, including the police force, will be cowed.

Harold is in love with Ethel Parks, but finds scant favor with her father, Parks always manages to get his daughter away from her admirer, but one day Harold makes bold to call at the house.

The misfortunes of a deaf burglar.

Cobbler Meyer puts Limburger cheese in the shoes of grocer Schnitz to sabotage his attendance with Mabel at a house party.

Si marries a guileless country maid, and receives among his wedding presents a bottle of liquor. The bride samples it in Si's absence, and being unaccustomed to drink, is overcome and falls on the table in a stupor. Si discovers her just as a party of neighbors are coming to congratulate the young couple and hides her in the yard, laying her on a bench. An inquisitive visitor finds her and reports to the constables that Si has killed his wife, and he is apprehended.

A newly wedded couple get mixed up with a black couple, who are also getting wed, as both parties head for the same train.

Veteran Warner and old gardener Burns vie for the hand of Widow Simpson, and the gardener steals the former's uniform and joins in the ranks of a parade, pursued by his rival. Utilizes footage shot during a Thomas Ince battle production at Inceville, the Grand Army of the Republic parade in downtown Los Angeles which commenced at 9:30am PST on September 11, 1912 (including starting area at 5th and Los Angeles and viewing stands near finish by Courthouse at Broadway and Temple), and other G.A.R. festivities at the National Soldiers' Home at Sawtelle in Los Angeles.

A wealthy, callous moneylender finds a terrifying way to learn about money's limitations.

This might be termed a comedy of errors, for the overzealousness of a lot of good-hearted simple folks places them in a rather embarrassing position. Lillie Green, who keeps a boarding house, receives a letter from her old school chum, Polly Brown, whom sin hasn't seen in years, to the effect that as Lillie has never seen her little darling daughter, she will send her for a few days' visit, asking that someone meet the child at the 3:40 train. Lillie's boarders are a bunch of kind-hearted bachelors, who at once prepare to give the "Little Darling" the time of her life, buying a load of toys, etc., for her amusement, also procuring a baby carriage with which to meet her at the train. You may imagine their embarrassment when they find that Tootsie, instead of being a baby, proves to be a handsome young lady of seventeen, whose tastes run rather to garden gates, shady lanes and quiet nooks, than toys. (Moving Picture World)

Mary Rollins is torn between selfish depravity and righteous living. After she's coerced into helping with the burglary of her minister's apartment, she comes face to face with her misdeeds.

A royal woman rejects her arranged marriage. The cardinal hatches a plan: the suitor will shave and change clothes. He arranges with 4 clowns to stage an attack on the princess which he easily repels. It works; the princess falls for him, especially when the cardinal arranges his arrest.

Mrs. Kendrick borrows a jeweled necklace from a friend for an important social event. The necklace is stolen, and Mr. Kendrick goes into debt to replace it. The thief discovers it's costume jewelry, but the Kendricks never learns the truth; Husband and wife struggle for years to pay off the huge debt.

A son leaves to seek his fortune in the city. Many years later he returns and checks into his parents' inn. They don't recognize him, but noticing his fat wallet, plan to rob him.

A gang of thieves lure a man out of his home so that they can rob it and threaten his wife and children. The family barricade themselves in an interior room, but the criminals are well-equipped for breaking in. When the father finds out what is happening, he must race against time to get back home.

A contest is being held in Cremona for the best violin, with Giannina's hand in marriage as the prize. Filippo is secretly in love with her, but is also ashamed of being a cripple, so he switches his superior violin with that of another apprentice, Sandro, whom Giannina loves.

A man leaves his wife and two daughters for work in a carpentry shop. At work, he initially refuses a beer with lunch, then gives in. After work, two friends take a little while to convince him to go for a refreshing malt beverage, then to have another and another....

Henry and Marion have a lover's quarrel and part in anger. They do not reconcile, and ten years pass without contact. Marion becomes a society girl and spends her time at parties with her friends. Henry has become very ill and wishes to see Marion one more time. He writes asking her to visit. When she recieves the note, she laughs and tosses it on the floor, but, later, on a whim, decides to take all her drunken friends with her to visit him. When they arrive, Marion finds Henry dead, clutching her portrait in his hand. She sends her friends away and falls to her knees in remorse. Mary Pickford's debut!

Nekhludoff, a Russian nobleman serving on a jury, discovers that the young girl on trial, Katusha, is someone he once seduced and abandoned and that he himself bears responsibility for reducing her to crime. He sets out to redeem her and himself in the process.

One of the members of a suicide club learns he has inherited some money, but only after he drew the fatal lot and is expected to kill himself. Presumed to be a lost film.

Nellie flees her old life and goes east to become a nurse, where she marries a doctor. One of her old colleagues finds her and tries to blackmail her. When the blackmail plot is exposed, Nellie's husband expresses his complete faith in her.

A man arrives home late and drunk as usual. His wife reminds him that he's supposed to take their daughter out to a play. While watching the play, he's faced with his own drinking evils and how his life would be without them.

A girl from the New York slums falls in with crooks. After her love is arrested following a barfight turned deadly, her life seems directionless-- that is, until she's saved from the streets by a band of Salvationists. She enrolls, and soon afterward encounters her former love in the same bar. Her faith is real, and strong, and her former love doesn't like this.

A few of us have had the chance to read our own obituary notice, but it fell to the lot of John Goodhusband the rare privilege of viewing his own elegiac cinerary floral offerings, and at the time John was anything but a "dead one."

Mack Sennett appears as a footman in this film produced by the Biograph Company.

Mack Sennett appears as a wedding guest in this film produced by the Biograph Company.

Bachelor Reggie writes his uncle that he has a wife and child, but then must produce them when the uncle visits.

Based on Shakespeare's play. Petruchio courts the bad-tempered Katharina, and tries to change her aggressive behavior.

D.W. Griffith film about an elderly father who grows tired of seeing his son bring home beautiful women so he gets a makeover and heads out on the prowl.

D.W. Griffith film about an elderly father who grows tired of seeing his son bring home beautiful women so he gets a makeover and heads out on the prowl.