The Weak-End Party

Having worked with Charles Chaplin in the Fred Karno music halls, his influence in Stan Laurel's work is undeniable. These short films are a wordless world, and because Laurel worked in Europe where English wasn't spoken, he learned how to rely on his body language to tell a story. Such is the case in this short film.

Only the first reel of this two-reeler from 1922 seems to survive, which is a pity. Of course every lost reel of film is a sad loss, but this is a Stan Laurel film, one of the great talents of film comedy, and a loss of one of his films is greater than, say a missing Al Joy comedy.

Even so, this is not a particularly good comedy. While some of the gags are sharp and in focus, like his skipping around the rug in his room for no clear reason until the payoff, some are simple random bits, like reaching for a billiard chalk and snatching the wig off a bald woman.

You may notice that Stan seems to be wearing a lot of mascara around his eyes. The orthochromatic film stock in use at this time could not pick up his pale blue eyes and this was a means of compensating. Within a couple of years, panchromatic stock would become standard and the eye makeup would disappear. And he would learn how to structure his gags brilliantly.