Larry schlägt alle Rekorde!

It's hard to believe that back in the early 1920s, Larry Semon was one of the top movie comics--as he is practically unheard of today. In fact, I think the only reason I found this short on DVD was because like many of Semon's films, his co-star was Oliver Hardy and this film was part of Passport Video's "The Laurel OR Hardy Collection"--films featuring one or the other before they were permanently teamed in 1927.

The plot involves a rivalry between Semon and Hardy. Both want the same girl and oddly her father says that the winner of an auto race can then have permission to date her. Since Hardy always plays the villain in these films, it's not surprising that he cheats and uses many underhanded tricks to try to win the race. The race scenes and ones leading up to it are pretty good. Like other Semon comedies, this one is full of physical humor and is very high paced--much more so than the more polished shorts of Keaton or Lloyd. When the pacing AND the jokes come together, Semon's films are wonderful and very entertaining. The problem here is that while the stunts are excellent, there just aren't all that many laughs--making this a little better than a time-passer. Good, but certainly not among Semon's best work.

"Kid Speed" is an about on-par Larry Semon short, and theoretically it is a story about two fellows who must participate in an auto race in order to see who wins the girl. Of course, the fact that it is an about on-par Larry Semon short means that in reality it is not a story at all but twenty sustained minutes of crazy gags in the manner of an acted-out cartoon and revolving around the general theme of preparing for an auto race.

It's not Semon's greatest, most spectacular, or most memorable gag comedy, but even mid-level Larry Semon, despite its complete plotlessness and characterlessness, entertains on a certain very specific level and manages to impress with its scale of wildness and destructiveness. There's a goofy, baffling quality to the sight of a race-car pulling a man in bed along or a battle of sparks from a blacksmith's iron that makes us laugh with the film and at its for its unashamed daftness.

This was later in Larry's career in shorts, and in some close-ups his face looks rather lined and weary -- arresting in contrast with his ageless whiteface clown image. This being a Larry Semon film, the forecast has a high chance of some tasteless gratuitous racist humor. It occurs in a much stronger concentration in Semon's films than almost anywhere, and is never the highlight. Here it is felt but not the centerpiece of the short, as he tries to pull laughs from multiple shots of people's faces being darkened by soot from motors.

Oliver Hardy is here, being made to look positively skinny in comparison with the accurately-nicknamed Frank "Fatty" Alexander. Hardy is cast as Larry's rival, the seemingly malicious "Dangerous Dan." As such he mainly just gets to fill his role as Larry Semon's very capable slapstick practitioner sidekick. No character comedy as usual, but he is good at the pratfalls.

This is for you if you can find enjoyment in wildly goofy, impossible visual fun and don't come in looking for much more. In other words, it's a success at being a standard Larry Semon comedy, for what it's worth.

Kid Speed is another Larry Semon short with Oliver Hardy in support that I found on a Platinum DVD Laurel and Hardy collection. This time Hardy and Semon are car race rivals for a girl's affection. Since Hardy is the heavy, he's the one who tries to keep Semon from winning with help from various friends. One of my favorite gags involves Hardy and pals washing themselves with water from a barrel when another barrel on the roof spills tar through a roof hole into the water barrel causing Hardy and friends to look pitch black! There's also plenty of laughs involving people slipping into and out of automobiles and one more involving the winner and girl with white paint on the winner's face! Larry Semon is funny throughout and Hardy once again displays mannerisms that would come full fruition when he eventually teamed with Stan Laurel. By all means, seek this one out!

Although 'The Great Race' is one of my favourite movies (and, in my opinion, the funniest comedy ever made), in general I dislike movies about auto races ... and especially movies such as 'The Four-Wheeled Terror' in which the autos are racing through open countryside rather than a purpose-built race track. Those roads are meant for regular vehicles and pedestrians, not for a few juiced-up idiots who get their joys from breaking the speed limit and endangering public safety.

However, 'The Four-Wheeled Terror' does offer a few pleasures: more than usual for a Larry Semon film. We get a brief performance by heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries, well-cast as a blacksmith. Semon has an interesting and atypical gag near the beginning of this comedy short: he sees his reflection in a mirror with a horizontal crack, and in the broken glass the middle of his reflection's face is missing.

Semon plays a racecar driver here. For implausible reasons, some gangsters decide to nobble his car ... using bombs if necessary. There are some semi-amusing title cards parodying the poetry of Robert W Service, so (in the service of parodying Service) Oliver Hardy's villain is cried Dangerous Dan McGraw, while Dorothy Dwan is the lady that's known as Lou. In real life, Dwan was Semon's wife as well as his leading lady in some of his films.

There are two pleasant surprises here. Semon's race car prominently displays the number 14, rather than the more obvious 13. Also, although many Larry Semon films feature gratuitous and unfunny racist gags about cowardly black men, here Semon's co-driver is played by a black man who actually portrays a fairly realistic human being. The black man is Spencer Bell, who appeared in some other Semon films under the unfortunate monicker G. Howe Black.

This time round, Semon seems to be trying more for thrills than for comedy ... taking a leaf from Harold Lloyd? So, I'll forgive 'The Four-Wheeled Terror' for its lack of humour. Unfortunately, I didn't find it very thrilling either ... and (as usual in a Semon flick) most of the stunt work is unconvincing. The final gag was unpleasant to look at. This one rates just 3 out of 10.

As the only Larry Semon movie I had previously seen was the rather sorry Wizard of Oz I wasn't expecting much from this short, but I was quite impressed by it. Semon plays a dapper character – you just know what's going to happen as he approaches his car in an immaculate white suit – who loves the same woman as Oliver Hardy. We know Ollie's a bad guy here because he beats his staff whenever he can. To decide who shall have the woman once and for all they decide to race for her.

The film is one of the thrill comedies so popular in the 20s and it contains some terrific shots of racing cars tearing around a dusty Californian terrain. At one point Semon's car tows the sheriff's bed – complete with the sheriff in his nightclothes – at breakneck speed while the sheriff bounces precariously around. There's also a funny scene when Semon finds himself involved in a boxing match with former champion Jim Jeffries. He takes the opportunity to swing a few punches while the champ is still tying his laces, but Jeffries doesn't even notice…