The Old Barn

Painful early sound comedy from Mack Sennett which contains no laughs whatsoever. The lead is played by Johnny Burke, whose career was about to come to an abrupt end with the advent of sound. Hardly surprising on this evidence...

By the time this short film was made, Mack Sennett's fame was definitely on the decline. The once King of Slapstick in the 1910s was by now a second-rate producer of comedies that had lost their way. Unlike his rival, Hal Roach, the transition to talkies was not especially smooth and the visual style of Sennett comedies was ill-suited for talking pictures.

This film is no exception to the decline of Sennett. This country comedy is plagued by two major problems. First, and most serious of them is that it just isn't funny. There are a few really corny jokes but otherwise there doesn't seem to be an attempt to make it funny or interesting. Second, in the end, the plot becomes hopelessly muddled and makes very little sense--with lots of plot elements coming out of nowhere'.

Please, do yourself a favor and find another comedy--this one is, just like the Sennett mascot, for the dogs.

"The Old Barn" was one of the earliest talking shorts produced by the Mack Sennett studios, and unfortunately it leaves much to be desired. The plot, such as it is, is that some vaguely-identified people sit around in a hotel, then get scared that "Strangler Dan" might be in the area, then somebody shows up who might be Strangler Dan.

This ingenious sequence of events isn't really enhanced by a strong vein of comedy. The actors seem to have no sense of comic timing, and deliver their lines stiffly and hesitantly, as if perhaps they haven't quite finished learning them. This is with the exception of reliable comedians Vernon Dent and Andy Clyde, who has a funny characterization as a sheriff, but doesn't get much to do with it.

Typical Sennett comedies were fast paced and full of wild stunts and sight gags. This one is glacially paced and relies on verbal humor -- badly. The short alternates between the characters sitting around not doing much, and the characters stiffly and inappropriately reciting bad jokes to each other. I don't just mean the jokes are old or punny or silly. They're legitimately bad jokes. For instance, one character is eating soup loudly. Another asks, "Is that compulsory?" and the first replies "No, it's vegetable." They're on that level. It's as if the filmmakers realized they could now use sound to tell jokes and didn't think it mattered HOW they used sound to tell jokes.

The rest of the short seems to rely on characters acting scared for comedy, which I never think works, and a so-called payoff that consists of people revealing that they weren't actually who they said they were (if they said they were anybody) out of the blue and without much humor.

Talkies from 1929 can be forgiven a certain amount of stiffness and uncertainty stemming from the newness of sound in movies, but that doesn't excuse plain bad comedy writing.

The Old Barn is a fun early talkie from the Mack Sennett studios. The movie takes place at a little country inn called the Cedar Creek Hotel. First we meet Johnny Burke, the farm hand, who's in love with Thelma Hill, the maid. There's also a sheriff (Andy Clyde), a gypsy fortune teller, a schoolteacher, and the hotel's owner. While listening to the radio they hear that a dangerous criminal named Stranger Dan has escaped from prison. Things get scary when a mysterious man shows up at the hotel and they start hearing strange noises in the barn. Along the way there are some good jokes and lots of laughs.

Thelma Hill gives a wonderful performance in this movie. She was one of Mack Sennett's most popular bathing beauties but she never had a big film career. Sadly Thelma died in 1938 at the young age of 31.

Unfortunately, this one's really bad. The comic writing and plot idea is fairly interesting, but most of the single scenes (with the sole exception of perhaps one, involving the radio program) are completely out of pace with the continuity and the plot. The gags are just randomly thrown in without rhyme or reason. It is far more like you are watching actors playing around with the outline of a different, unmade movie, while the cameras just happen to be rolling.

For example, there's the line "Call your shots Sheriff, you're not at a SWIMMING pool", which would work had they been playing pool, but they're all at the dinner table (each seeming to be waiting to say their next little joke); the line is just casually and randomly thrown out there, and it makes little sense in the context used. It's almost as if someone found an old joke book and decided to use all the gags in a short time without the considerations for where and how the jokes would work. There isn't even as much mystery as is implied.

Sadly, it is a sinking ship about eight minutes in, and the climax and the ending are embarrassing. Even though the plot is fairly simple (with regard to who is really who), it comes off as totally incoherent.

3/10.

If you are looking around for something like this, you should check out "The Bee's Buzz" (from the same company) which is nearly flawless and very well-made from start to finish. It's hard to believe, though, that these two films could be so different concerning entertainment value.