The Suburbanite

The short comedy "The Suburbanite" works fairly well in telling a story about the adventures of a family who move to the suburbs. The story is similar to those in a number of later movies, perhaps most notably "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. Here, in this much earlier movie, the film has to be carried by the settings and situations, rather than by the actors and characters.

Most of the story just shows the various adventures that the family has upon moving into their new home, but there is a reasonable variety of material and situations. It gets a little predictable after a while, but it has enough energy to keep things moving along well enough and to remain watchable.

In movies, at least. This story has been copied countless times since this one surfaced in 1904. Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, The Money Pit, Moving - there are no end of films that have used the same simple foundations on which to build comedy films of varying quality. This, possibly the first of its kind, isn't too bad, although the 9 minute running time is padded out with some long shots that border on tedious at times. The first scene has the new family walking down the street to their house. we see them stroll the entire length of the street in a shot that seems to take forever. Then, later on, we see the latest in a succession of housemaids walking down the street to their house. She, too, seems to take forever. The comedy isn't particularly funny these days, although those removal men definitely strike a chord. An interesting one-time watch, but not one that will last in the memory.

It's hard for me to knock any film that is over 100 years old, and in the infancy of film-making. I just think it's great we still have some of these films. To me, many of them serve more as historical value, showing the times, than for entertainment. For instance, this movie was labeled a comedy and was supposed to be funny. Maybe it was for the folks back then, but I doubt many people today would be entertained by this nine-minute short. However, it is great satire, and how many movie fans would think they would do satirical pieces as early as this?

However, there was more do it than met the eye, as it was meant to be a satire. Apparently, at this time in American history, the suburbs were being promoted as a great place for city dwellers to move. It was pictured as the perfect place to live. The filmmakers here spoof that, showing the problems that can happen with furniture movers, trying to meet commuter train connections, trying to get good "help," and other things....all leading to the family giving up in the end.

It shows a family moving to the suburbs, with the movies spilling some of the house objects. Then we see three kids left alone out front to play and apparently they get muddy so they are brought inside. Then, the burly (of course) mother-in-law arrives and then other household help arrives, but the cook is an ornery woman who throws everyone out of the kitchen, even hitting one man over the head with the a frying pan. Subsequently, police are brought in to take her away. All of that, I assume, to get across their anti-suburb message.

"The Suburbanite" is a short film whose message is that moving to the suburbs isn't all it's cracked up to be. During the course of this nine minute film, you see the movers absolutely destroy everything, children getting into trouble, the family having problems keeping servants AND the mother-in-law deciding to move in with them. Surely life was better before they moved!

As I read through JoeytheBrit's review, I noticed that he was right....some of the scenes go on too long and should have been edited. Still, they crammed a lot into nine minutes! Is it hilarious? Probably for those living back in 1904, thugh today it probably isn't the sort of thing normal folks would watch unless paid to do so. I like old films, so I enjoyed it...though my taste is unique!

A family moves out to the suburbs, where everything that can go wrong, does.

Wallace McCutcheon, the Old Man of Biograph (he had attained the great age of 44 when this was released) is only known to have co-written this one, but it clearly shows his hand, not only in his sense of humor, but in his taste for the "illustrated text" style of film-making that this is an example of. The occasional titles serve to tell the audience what they are about to see, followed by the action.... only the action comments ironically on the brief titles. The result is a film that even today is very amusing, despite elaborations on the theme at far greater length n later years, in films like MR BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE and THE MONEY PIT.