In this era of high-definition digital video files and Blu-rays, a number of intriguing films are still being released only in the DVD format. For example on May 27 Kino Classics Video came out with “The Max Linder Collection,” the latest DVD in their “Slapstick Symposium” series of silent comedy.
French stage actor and comedian Max Linder started in movies in 1905, and within a few years had become a huge international comedy star, writing and directing his own films. By the outbreak of World War I he was possibly the biggest star in the world, and was a major influence on Charlie Chaplin, who entered movies in 1914 and soon eclipsed Linder’s popularity, just as the war was curtailing Linder’s career. When Chaplin left the Essanay studio in 1916 for Mutual, which not only paid a larger salary but offered greater personal control, Essanay in turn lured Linder to Hollywood to make a dozen shorts while the war was still raging in Europe. Unfortunately, Linder’s films for Essanay did not catch on with the public and he returned to France the next year after making only a few films. In 1921, however, he came back to Hollywood to make feature-length films for his own production company. Once again, however, they were financial disappointments despite some critical praise (including by superstars Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks), and once again he went back to France the following year. His style influenced the other great comics, and has elements reminiscent of Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and Raymond Griffith. Sadly, Linder suffered from severe depression since the war, aggravated by the failure of his American career, and in 1925 at age 41 he and his 20-year-old wife committed suicide together.
Kino’s DVD includes four of Linder’s recently-restored American films: his three independent features, running approximately an hour each, and one of his Essanay shorts, which is almost a half-hour in length. The disc presents them in reverse-chronological order. It might be better to watch them chronologically to get a better idea of his developing screen character (which suddenly changes in his last American film), and also because the picture quality of the surviving films gets better with each successive film. It might also be worth seeking out some of his early French shorts, none of which are included on this disc, although several can be found on other DVDs. Unfortunately the only Linder currently on Blu-ray is a French edition containing 10 early French shorts plus a compilation of highlights from the three American features that are presented in their complete form on this new Kino DVD.
MAX WANTS A DIVORCE (1917) is an amusing two-reel slapstick farce, but is definitely the weakest of the group, in plot and humor as well as in picture quality. Max plays a newlywed who is suddenly informed he’ll inherit a fortune if he remains a bachelor. He tries to convince his wife that they should divorce so they can be rich and then later remarry, and most of the film consists of his trying to establish sufficient grounds for divorce without irreparably annoying his wife. Their plans to set him up with a temporary mistress he can be caught with become complicated when a psychiatrist takes a room across the hall from the room they’ve rented and all sorts of his crazy patients enter the picture, while Max’s wife decides to disguise herself as a maid to keep an eye on just how far he takes the “fake mistress” idea. There are some funny bits but the humor often seems forced and dragged-out, and might have worked better in a film half as long. The dupey image of the surviving print also detracts from the film’s impact, making it look more like just another old silent comedy.
SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK (1921) has Max as his typical wealthy character, starting out at a bachelor party. He wakes up with a hangover and the film puts him through numerous trials and degradations after he breaks his bedroom dressing mirror and is convinced that now his fiancée will reject him and various other problems will befall him. Of course that’s what happens, partly due to the efforts of his best friend, who is also in love with his fiancée. Two sequences stand out, most notably the incredible “mirror scene” when one of his servants pretends to be him behind the empty frame as he dresses and shaves. The Marx Brothers and many others would later do their own versions of the gag but Linder’s may be the funniest. Another is when he takes great pains to sneak onto a train without a ticket and later takes refuge from pursuing police in a lions’ cage at a zoo. A number of critics find this to be his best feature, possibly due to the great series of gags, but it is quite episodic and has a number of narrative problems with characterizations and motivations.
BE MY WIFE (1921) is arguably the best film in the set, even if its plot also seems like two or three related short films strung together. Part of its effectiveness comes from the mostly very good print quality and really excellent music score. Again Linder is his trademark silk-hatted dandy and the plot is a rather more inventive reworking of a similar situation, with his fiancée played by the same actress as in SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK (Alta Allen). The first section of the film he tries to win the approval of his fiancée’s aunt, who prefers a rival for her niece until Max amusingly demonstrates that the rival is a coward. Once they’re married, a complicated misunderstanding develops where each becomes convinced that the other is cheating, thanks to a pricey dress shop that doubles as a discreet rendezvous for lovers looking to find alcohol during Prohibition. Some of the antics anticipate material worthy of a PreCode early talkie from a decade later!
THE THREE MUST-GET-THERES (1922) is a departure from the usual dapper modern aristocrat Linder played. This time the film is a farcical, intentionally anachronistic parody of the classic French historical adventure “The Three Musketeers,” which had been made into a popular film the previous year by swashbuckling hero Douglas Fairbanks. (Outrageously satiric sendups of Hollywood hits have been around long before spoofs like AIRPLANE, NAKED GUN, MEET THE SPARTANS, and SCARY MOVIE.) Like later examples of the genre, for effective enjoyment the film requires that the audience be acquainted with both the film(s) it is parodying and with current pop culture. Even for those not familiar with the Alexandre Dumas novel or any of the numerous film versions, this film still tells a coherent story with plenty of amusing sight gags. Linder plays “Dart-In-Again,” a rural sword expert who hopes to join the king’s musketeers in Paris. He gets mixed up in the court intrigues of the king, the queen, her lover, her beautiful maidservant, and the conniving “Li’l Cardinal Richie-Loo,” and eventually must rush to England to recover some jewels that will preserve the queen’s honor. In this film, obviously, Linder spends much of the time spoofing Douglas Fairbanks. He still brings his own personality into it, as well as gags later borrowed by other comics (for example his hat-choosing scene with an in-joke about his trademark top hat later being lifted by Buster Keaton in STEAMBOAT BILL, JR.).
Picture quality varies from film to film, with THE THREE MUST-GET-THERES and BE MY WIFE having the clearest and most consistent image. Although wear is apparent, all look quite nice (SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK is in the roughest shape of the features) and one can only imagine how much crisper these transfers would appear on a Blu-ray. MAX WANTS A DIVORCE, recently rediscovered, is a mediocre contrasty copy of a copy, and looks about as good as it ever will unless new earlier-generation 35mm material is discovered. Speeds all look natural, not too fast and not too slow. Each film has a fine new musical score following the action and moods appropriately throughout. Donald Sosin plays for MAX WANTS A DIVORCE, the score for SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK is by Robert Israel, BE MY WIFE is scored by Eric Le Guen, and THE THREE MUST-GET-THERES is scored by Maud Nelissen. There are unfortunately no bonus features.
“The Max Linder Collection” DVD overview --
MAX WANTS A DIVORCE – Movie: C+ / Video: C+ / Audio: A / Extras: NA
SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK – Movie: A- / Video: B+ / Audio: A / Extras: NA
BE MY WIFE – Movie: A / Video: A- / Audio: A / Extras: NA
THE THREE MUST-GET-THERES – Movie: A- / Video: A / Audio: A / Extras: NA
