Musty's Vacation

Made during the collapse of the Motion Pictures Patents Trust, this comedy is a clear exemplar of the problems that the Trust suffered from; they may have held the patents and the money at the start, but by the time this movie came along, it was about ten years out of date and the audience didn't want it, nor had the audience wanted it for years.

Musty finds a booklet of prepaid meals and in order to use them, must look like the person on the cover of the book, so he goes to a plastic surgeon whose methods are modeled on Melies trick comedies of ten years before, and done with neither flair nor cinematic subtlety. If it wasn't so obviously faked, indeed, it would be so brutal as to make Ham and Bud look like drawing room comedians. Not one of the better Musty Suffers,