The Better 'Ole

This is my second attempt to watch this totally worthless excuse of a movie. I cannot see any value in it, except maybe as a bad example of a silent movie about The Great War, a movie that is supposed to be funny.

Syd Chaplin, Charlie's older brother, does a lot of mugging the camera, including from inside a costume horse, but none of it was funny.

The other people in the cast of "The Better 'Ole" try as hard as they can, but without any funny material, it's all a waste.

Considering this is rather late in the history of silent movies, it's really hard to understand why there is a lot of knockabout, a lot of falling down, but almost nothing funny.

Apparently Syd Chaplin had some success, was considered a comedic character, but judging by "The Better 'Hole," I cannot see why.

Tonight, 25 Sept 2022, is at least the second time TCM has shown it, There are so many good movies, including good silent movies, I just do not understand why it's being shown again.

Syd Chaplin (as "Old Bill" Busby) and Jack Ackroyd (as Little "Alfie") are World War I servicemen; while being bombarded, in a foxhole, Mr. Chaplin tells Mr. Ackroyd, "If you knows of a better 'ole - go to it." This exchange gives the film its peculiar title. The characters are based on the (by now) obscure British cartoon comic "Old Bill", by Bruce Bairnsfather. Seeing the familiar characters brought to the screen might have made the opening scenes delightful, but they no longer entertain. Veterans (of film) Edgar Kennedy (as Austin) and Harold Goodwin (as Bert Chester) help make the early going bearable.

Ackroyd's stabbing of Chaplin as he sleeps under a bale of hay begins some intermittently good scenes. Chaplin's chair lifting ability amazes, and the Chaplin/Ackroyd team becomes funnier as the comedy progresses; they are most delightful as "two-men-in-a-horse".

The production levels offered by Warner Brothers are quite high; "The Better 'Ole" was the second film to make use of the studio's synchronized music and sound effects "Vitaphone" process. With a certain British sibling named "Charlie" experiencing a "Gold Rush" at the box office, it's easy to understand Warner's effort.

***** The Better 'Ole (10/7/26) Charles Reisner ~ Syd Chaplin, Jack Ackroyd, Edgar Kennedy, Harold Goodwin

There is more about Bairnsfather's films in his biography - IN SEARCH OF THE BETTER OLE published by Pen and Sword Books, Barnsley, UK. His most famous cartoon was the Better Ole but his most famous film was 'Carry on Sergeant' the phrase that gets most Army Officers through wars. The film was made in Canada in 1928 but caused furore in the country when a Canadian soldier was shown going upstairs with a girl in an estaminet. It did not do well mainly because it was a silent film just at the time that the talkies were taking off eg The Jazz Singer. Originally 14 reels long it has been shortened in the modern era and has been shown on Canadian television. Other films by Bairnsfather are The Better Ole 1918, Old Bill through the Ages 1924, The Better Ole 1926, Vitaphone personal appearance 1927 and Old Bill and Son 1941.

Fair silent comedy that does not play well to a modern audience -- probably because it is not slapstick enough to be funny today and because the drama appears more of an afterthought to what could have been a pure comedy. The first half of the movie drags but the second half is bearable.

Film opens with our hero, Syd Chaplin, and his pal in the trenches where they are chastised by bully Corporal Austin (Edgar Kennedy) –for singing after having survived a shelling. IMDb credits list Ed Kennedy as Corporal Quint but the actual film credit is quite clear. Film shift to the town of Boucaret where we encounter the traitor Major Russett who is in league with Gaspard, the owner of the Rooster Inn. Long and not particularly interesting sequence where Syd gets breakfast.

Cabaret night is mildly funny as Syd picks up thirteen chairs and a piano to clear the stage. Town transitions from British to German control. Syd and pal get left behind in horse costume. Probably best scenes are where Syd serves German General lunch and then sits on the body of an unconscious German soldier whose legs he arranges to look like his own. Syd and pal manage to fool German guards and eventually break free to help British Intelligence Officer save the British troops that come back into Boucaret. Syd is promoted to Sergeant thus giving him the opportunity to pay back Edgar Kennedy.

In many of these old silent war movies, even if the plot is threadbare, the shots of old war equipment or tactics might be of interest today. This is not one of those movies. Nor was Syd as good as his half-brother Charlie.

Syd Chaplin was a successful silent-film comedian whose importance has been upstaged by his much more famous half-brother. But in fact it was Syd Chaplin who helped kid brother Charlie get his first jobs as a performer in Victorian music-halls. After Charlie Chaplin became a film star, it was big brother Syd who negotiated the contracts that made Charlie a multi-millionaire. Richard Attenborough's film biography "Chaplin" sadly neglected the major contributions which Syd Chaplin made to Charlie's career, in addition to entirely ignoring Syd's own career as a comedian.

Like the Addams Family movies, "The Better 'Ole" is a live-action movie based on characters that originally appeared as magazine cartoons. "The Better 'Ole" stars Syd Chaplin in heavy make-up as Old Bill, a Tommy Atkins (private infantryman) in the British Expeditionary Forces during the Great War. Some historical background is necessary here. Americans of a certain age will recall Willie and Joe, the two riflemen drawn by American cartoonist (and infantryman) Bill Mauldin for "Stars and Stripes" magazine during World War Two. During the same period, English military humourist W.J.P. Jones was lampooning British Army officers in a panel cartoon called "The Two Types". What those characters represented for the Second World War, "Old Bill" represented for the British army during the First World War. Old Bill was created by Bruce Bairnsfather, a B.E.F. army captain and talented cartoonist. Bairnsfather's most famous drawing depicted Old Bill and a younger infantryman in a filthy trench full of rainwater. The younger man has clearly just finished uttering a complaint, and the caption reveals Old Bill's reply in his Cockney accent: "If you knows a better 'ole, go to it." That scene is re-enacted by Syd Chaplin in this movie, along with several more of Bairnsfather's drawings. (Bairnsfather's creation also became a London stage play, and there was a 1919 film version made in England ... so this movie is a Hollywood remake.)

Most of this film's appeal will be lost to modern viewers, who can't be expected to realise how incredibly popular (and how important to morale) Bairnsfather's cartoons were for the British war effort (and, to a lesser extent, the American war effort) during the Great War. Alas, too much of the humour here is too predictable. The best scene in "The Better 'Ole" occurs when Old Bill and his troopmate Alf go behind enemy lines disguised as the front and rear of a horse. This sequence is funny, but it's too similar to a scene in the earlier film "Shoulder Arms", in which Charlie Chaplin is a doughboy who goes behind enemy lines disguised as a tree. The fact that Syd Chaplin appears in "Shoulder Arms" (in two supporting roles) only emphasises how derivative "The Better 'OIe" is.

"The Better 'Ole" features good supporting performances by comedy veteran Edgar Kennedy and his unjustly obscure half-brother Tom Kennedy. The Kennedy brothers both had long film careers but only seldom worked together because they were similar physical types. Here, they're in separate scenes.

I enjoyed "The Better 'Ole" but I expect that most modern audiences lack the patience for it. Syd Chaplin deserves to be rediscovered, but this movie isn't one of his best efforts.