Much as I enjoy silent comedy, and much as I admire Stan Laurel, I can't think of a good reason to recommend The Snow Hawk to anyone but a die-hard Laurel buff willing to watch him in anything. This two-reel comedy was intended as a parody of Great Northwest wilderness tales, though whether it was meant to poke fun at a specific film is anyone's guess. The title seems to be a play on The Sea Hawk, released the previous year, but since that was a sailing adventure the parody element is limited to the title alone. Stan and his cast and crew went to Arrowhead Lake in California's San Bernardino Mountains to shoot this film, so the snow is real if that makes any difference to anyone, but unfortunately the location failed to inspire much in the way of genuine comedy.
The story is a basic triangle situation: Stan works in a trading post and is keen on the owner's daughter, but she ignores him and favors a strapping Mountie named Mike who sports an impressive uniform. So Stan goes off and joins the Mounties and comes back wearing a uniform of his own, but the girl still won't give him the time of day. Eventually we learn that Mike is not the man we thought he was, which doesn't come as much of a surprise, and Stan manages to prove himself.
Any of the top silent comedians could take a story outline like that one and make something entertaining out of it, certainly including Stan Laurel, but somehow The Snow Hawk never quite clicks. One problem is that it's under-populated, and the supporting cast isn't very engaging. There's no Jimmy Finlayson or Mae Busch for Stan to play against, and of course Babe Hardy wasn't on the scene yet. It's frustrating to learn that Anita Garvin was originally cast as Stan's leading lady— production stills exist showing Anita in costume with Stan on the set—but she became ill and was replaced by the rather colorless Julie Leonard. Still, even Miss Garvin would have had a hard time breathing life into this enterprise. The gags feel pretty desperate. For instance, at one point Stan wears a raccoon hat and leans against a counter in such a way that Julie's elderly father (who is perhaps a bit near-sighted) thinks a raccoon has invaded the store, so he grabs his gun and shoots it. Stan reacts with shock. A bit later, in a time-honored routine, a box of moth-balls is accidentally substituted for a box of candy. Stan eats them, and reacts accordingly. The quality never rises above that level, and to make matters worse, the print of this film offered by Kino lacks the closing gag, itself borrowed from Laurel's earlier short Frozen Hearts; originally, when Stan and the leading lady exit their cabin at the finale, they're buried in a mini-avalanche of snow. That's how it's supposed to go, but in the version found on the Kino DVD they simply exit, fade out, The End! Even Stan Laurel had his off days, as this disappointing short demonstrates, but he never would have ended a comedy on such an anti-climactic note as that!
