In one of Ben Turpin's rare Vogue comedies -- made in the period when he had left Essannay and had not been hired by Sennett -- Edward Laurie does not approve of daughter Lilian Hamilton's romance with Arthur Currier, but he will buy her a tiger, and hire Turpin to manage the beast. It dies before it arrives home, so Currier skins it and, with Turpin's connivance, climbs into the skin. What can be called comedy ensues if you are in a charitable mood and don't mind a tiger suit that is intended for a child's pantomime.
The demand for short slapstick comedies, triggered by Sennett half a decade earlier, was so enormous that even a chaotically assembled series of gags like this could be rented to movie theaters throughout the world. The copy I looked at derives from a print at the British Film Institute.
The demand for short slapstick comedies, triggered by Sennett half a decade earlier, was so enormous that even a chaotically assembled series of gags like this could be rented to movie theaters throughout the world. The copy I looked at derives from a print at the British Film Institute.
