Sept ans de malheur

I never heard of Max Linder before--a jaunty little Frenchman with a mustache, cane and top hat, a wealthy man with servants, who reacts when his full-length mirror is inadvertently broken by his hired help. He then goes to extremes to avoid seven years of bad luck.

While the rest of the plot is thin on inspiration, it does prove that SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK is a watchable little silent film with a frisky score by Ralph Israel that perfectly fits the on screen action.

Numerous gags involve plenty of acrobatic stunts aboard a train, an escape from the cops by making himself comfortable inside a lion's den, pretending to be the stationmaster at a train station and wooing the agent's daughter, and a footchase aboard the running train to escape being a stowaway without a ticket.

Not a bad comedy for 1921, it's one of a hundred Max Linder films that have survived, out of some 400. Gassed during World War I, Max's health problems interfered with his budding career. He committed suicide in 1925 in a pact with his wife when the public response to his films was only lukewarm. TCM showed a decent print of this one, along with a couple of other much less impressive shorts.

Thanks to the renewed interest in silent films brought about by video technology, a whole new generation is being introduced to the timeless comedy of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and others. But every time you laugh at their antics you should thank Max Linder the French comedian who did it all first.

Max began his film career in 1907 and by 1909 was writing, directing, and starring in his own films built around his character of the dapper dandy dressed in spats and silk top hat. By 1914 he was the highest paid entertainer in the world and had made over 350 films. Mack Sennett and Keystone were just underway and Chaplin had just arrived in America. Then World War I broke out. Max enlisted and was seriously wounded three times. By the time he had sufficiently recovered the world had changed. Chaplin was now the king of comedy having with full acknowledgement borrowed many of Max's gestures and routines. Max was flattered and came to the U. S. in 1917 to make a few short films before going back to France. He returned in 1921, bought a house in Hollywood, and made three feature films. These did not do well at the time and an increasingly depressed Max went back to France where he and his wife committed suicide in 1925. He was 42.

Out of his vast output, only a small fraction have survived. While this DVD is unlikely to bring about a Max Linder revival, it does allow us to see his most famous feature film, an abridged version of another, and some of his pre-war work in France when Max was at the peak of his popularity. SEVEN YEAR'S BAD LUCK (1921) contains the famous broken mirror routine of Max standing before someone else who mimics his actions. This gag was reused by the Marx Brothers in DUCK SOUP and by Lucille Ball and many others. The excerpt from BE MY WIFE (also 1921) has Max staging a fight with himself from behind a curtain. The condition of the prints used for this DVD are pretty good but not great and are probably the best available without the funding for a full scale restoration.

Nevertheless it's great to see Max back up on the screen once again. If you enjoy silent screen comedy then you owe it to yourself to check this disc out and watch the "Professor", as Chaplin called him, show us how it's done. Max Linder was the first comedy superstar and influenced all who came after him from Chaplin to the look of John Astin on THE ADDAMS FAMILY. Thanks to David Shepard and Film Preservation Associates for making these long unseen treasures available. The musical accompaniment by Robert Israel ranging from small orchestra to Fotoplayer (a sort of one man band) is first rate as usual...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

Max Linder does ... well, anyway, he was six years older than Chaplin, and Chaplin did give him credit for influencing some of Chaplin's work, which is evident in some scenes in this movie.

But Charlie was making movies in Hollywood as early as 1914, Keaton as early as 1917, and "Seven Years" was made in 1921.

Granted, Linder made other movies as early as 1905, the year America saw "The Great Train Robbery."

This movie, "Seven Years Bad Luck," is a joy. Even after nearly a hundred years, it is still funny, still clever, still creative.

It covers a lot of ground, from a servant-staffed mansion to a railroad station, with lots of action, and, more important, lots of laughs.

The mirror scene is, literally, classic -- incredibly well done, in fact so well done it was copied by the Marx Brothers and by Lucille Ball in a scene with Harpo on her "I Love Lucy" series.

That scene alone makes this movie worth watching.

Let me add this: This movie is fun, but there is an element of historicity that also makes this worth watching.

Linder was a model for other film comics; he was a creator; he was inventive.

That he is not better known speaks badly of motion pictures and their heritage.

To me, this movie was highly reminiscent of a Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton film, though with fewer laughs. Now this ISN'T to say it wasn't funny or was a bad film--but the number and intensity of the laughs was lower than other similar films. And the reason it looked a lot like a film by these other comedians is that Max Linder originated so many of the comedy routines we took for granted in films by later comedians--such as the mirror gag that was copied in DUCK SOUP (1933). Also, in the scenes where Max steps on and off the train so acrobatically are exactly the sort of thing I would expect Keaton or perhaps Chaplin to do. Chaplin himself credits much of his success to things he learned by watching early Linder films, though by the time he made it to Hollywood, Linder's film apparently lost a lot of their frenetic spark.

This film ostensibly is about Max breaking a mirror and trying to avoid bad luck--though everything he did only made things worse. While a promising premise, the movie really seemed to lose direction and the original plot is seldom in evidence later in the film. Some very good and interesting moments, but a lackluster and vague plot didn't help this movie. Still, it is nice to see Linder in a full-length film and it is well worth seeing for its finer moments. to highlight Linder's talents.

It is very complicated for this German Count to talk about Herr Max Linder because it is well-know among the silent film fans and even the longhaired ones, that he was the first and the greatest comedian, the paradigm of the elegance in comedy films, a world –famous star in the 10's. He had great influence with his unique style on the other comic stars that developed their careers after him including Herr Charles Chaplin. He created a genuine character, a young French idle class bourgeois boulevardier with top hat and suit ( not to be mistaken with the older German elegant and dissipated aristocracy… ), that always rather politely succeeds in the most incredible adventures… although after many efforts. This German Count thinks that it is always necessary to remember who is who in the silent film history and if this little communication is useful for some dangerous longhaired youngster in discovering these films, that's a greatest reward for this German aristocrat.

In "Seven Years Bad Luck", Max accidentally breaks his full-length mirror. As superstitious people in France, he thinks that this means seven years' bad luck; many troubles happens at that very moment, loses his fiancée Betty and even winds up in jail, but fortunately at the end, everything will be all right for Max. The film had astounding, funny and remarkable gags as, one of Max's most famous, scene in which Max mimics himself in a mirror that doesn't exists or his tricks to get onto a train without being discovered by the station master. "Seven Years Bad Luck" it is a feature film that belongs to his American period ( he went to USA in 1916 engaged by "Essanay" ) and it is an excellent example of his impeccable style: elegant sense of humour, elaborated and imaginative gags that appeals to the intelligence and complicity of the audience, a delightful and unforgettable comedy.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must to change his top hat for a Teutonic helmet in order to be not mixed up with that French bourgeois impostor.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/