Versatile Villain, The (1915)
*** (out of 4)
Spoof of the type of melodramas being released by Griffith back when Sennet was working for him has Charley Chase playing a young man who gets mistaken for a crook but soon the real thief, known as Desperate Dan, steals his girlfriend so he must race to save her. This is clearly a spoof of the movies by Griffith but even if you haven't seen one of his movies you'll easily be able to enjoy this comedy for the sheer kookiness of some of the situations. Director Griffin does a terrific job at playing up the melodrama to a point where it's got an innocent charm containing both laughs but also what appears to be a sweet homage. One of the funniest scenes happens early on when Chase is showing off his magic tricks of taking the watches off his co-workers but then he's accused of stealing them but we see Dan do it. The pay off to this sequence is quite funny and makes for a very memorable scene. The final five-minutes of this one-reeler also spoofs the various Westerns of the day where our hero must break into a small building and save the woman as time is running out because the bad guy has explosives set to go off. There's some nice suspense to this scene but we also get some good laughs. Chase does a very good job at playing the action hero and we get William Sheer playing the bad guy (Sheer would also appear in Raoul Walsh's REGENERATION released the same year). Louise Fazenda adds nice support as the love interest.