There It Is

This is one of those old silent movies that belong in a class with The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916) or Un Chien Andalou (1928)...it is so weird that it stands out and makes you notice it. This little gem involves a Scot detective, a haunted house, and a very goofy looking Phantom. It's very fast-paced and frantic...much like a Keystone Kops movie with a bit higher level of wit.

This funny, wacky Charley Bowers comedy combines plenty of absurdist material with Bowers's trademark visual effects, along with plenty of sight gags and puns, to create an unusual and very entertaining short feature. As in so many of the short films that Bowers made, it has an odd kind of internal logic all its own, for all that it is completely off the wall and unpredictable.

Bowers plays a detective, sent to investigate the 'Fuzz-Faced Phantom', who is a wonderfully goofy concept. Aside from Bowers and the Phantom (played by Buster Brodie), most of the other characters have to play it straight and endure a series of indignities – that is, except for Charley's amusing assistant MacGregor, another imaginative conception that has to be seen to be appreciated.

Bowers squeezes quite a bit out of the material, and it keeps up an enjoyably manic pace for the entire running time, until it winds up the story and the case in an amusing way that seems entirely appropriate.

When a mysterious figure appears to cause a series of disruptions at the Frisbie Home in New York, word goes out to Scotland Yard that the Fuzz-Faced Phantom is at work. Soon, Charley MacNeesha and his assistant MacGregor are sent across the ocean to investigate. But even as they arrive at the home, a new series of weird events begins: full-grown chickens hatch from eggs, pots float across rooms, and pants dance of their own volition.

Charles Bowers was forgotten for decades and his name was notably absent from most histories of the Silent Era... and how is that possible? Once you have seen this film, you will instantly put it up there with all the silent greats: Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Lloyd... maybe his output was smaller (I don't know), but this one film alone is an incredible mash of surrealistic weirdness and stop-motion chicanery. I can't think of anything else in the era that even comes close.

I saw this on TCM.I like good silent comedies, but this is definitely not one of them.It just seemed stupid rather than funny.Naming a ship coming from Scotland the "SS Hoot Mon" is painfully idiotic rather than humorous.Some people can tell even the corniest jokes and make them seem funny;other people just sound boring and tedious. This was definitely the latter. Made you wish for the Three Stooges. Amazing how much trouble someone want to and ended up with nothing.I thought that this would be a very useful tool to show to a film class in college to demonstrate that making a GOOD slapstick film is no where near as easy as it may seem.

In this rare silent, Bowers plays a Scottish detective who is assigned to capture a "fuzz-faced phantom" who "haunts" a house.

The special effects, especially the stop-motion segments, are truly revolutionary and creative (in one scene, an egg hatches into a full-grown chicken right before your eyes!). And, the "phantom" does some pretty weird things, via special effects.

Bowers was a film "genius" and, in my opinion, far surpasses George Melies, and others.

I have MOST of this film, but not the entire film. If anyone has it (or other Bowers films), I would LOVE to purchase copies of them.

Thank you! Norm