Pathfinders; 7; Mack Sennett: A Riot of Disorder

What slapstick is two pieces of wood fastened again there with a handle, like this the usually barrel staves and when you hit somebody on the seat of the fence with them they'd slap like that make a loud noise that was just a conclin one of the great clowns of max and its ski stone comedies my name is Benjamin Demard max and it put slapstick comedy on the screen in the early part of the 20th century for film could talk Senate used the motion in motion pictures as nobody before him had ever done to create a new vision of life in Senate's comedies the populace was absurd sheen re-incredible the tempo wild the life these films depicted they

well not have been any more illogical than our own more preposterous but the performance was better organized than ours there was a lot fun here 1912 and 1935 max and it made more than a thousand films most of them won in two real comedies he was born in Canada as young men growing up in Connecticut

worked for a while as a boiler maker from boilers he went to burlesque and then as an aspiring actor to DW Griffith's biograph studios New York he said that Griffith was my day school my adult education program my university here is Senate the comedian with Louise Fesenda and Teddy the lap dog and here in the Hollywood kid with a leading main from gays animal farm he was no great checks as an actor but as a producer Senate gathered around him some of the finest comedians and comedy craftsmen of his time at his Edendale studio in Glendale this was about 1914 when the studio was under construction the lady on the right is Senate's mother Mrs. Senate as the family name originally was Senate himself never married all it took to make successful films was film and talent and Senate had

a talent for finding talent he gave Charlie Chaplin his first job in the movies his discoveries inventions protege included Mabel Norman who's usually regarded as the unresolved love interests of Senate's life Harold Lloyd whom he fired early in both their careers Buster Keaton Ben Turpin who'd scream out at the top of his voice in public places Ben Turpin 3000 a week glorious sponsor Chester Conchlam the versatile comedian and a regular in the Keystone cops Marie Dressler who once received Senate back stage when he was a stage struck boy W. C. Fields taking cover here in the pharmacist Carol Lombard decked out as the girl from nowhere and reliably as cookoo clockwork appearances by the Keystone cops coming to the rescue appearances by the Senate bathing

beauties and appearances by cars bears and lions locomotives dogs airplanes anything that moved the fast to the better and the funnier Senate style of comedy evolved from the music calls and burlesque this is Doe and Dynamite 1914 Chaplin's first success in films they were props and pratfalls of punny Chaplin and Chester Conchlam have put a loaf of bread with a stick of

dynamite in it into the oven they don't know about the dynamite but the audience does this was civilization's finest flower you could always hope for the worst in the Senate picture and know you wouldn't be disappointed for the worst was the best and the wildest and the maddest of all possible worlds we're at the motion picture country house in woodland hills near Los Angeles a home and hospital maintained by the film industry for its own max senate died here in 1960 this is del Lord by reputation senate's fastest and most resourceful director mr. Lord's five years of work as a stuntman without as much as a skin knuckle and then he turned director and put other people through their paces this is Chester Conchlam

ex-baker of dynamite ex-keystone cop and senate stalwart and this is Catherine McGuire who worked with max senate as an actress for several years and this is Andy Clyde who was a featured comedian for 13 years with mr. senate max senate started off to make a movie what did he have in the way of an idea or what did he have in the way of a shooting script what did it look like very often we would start without a shooting script we would get an idea for what we thought at that time was a terrific finish and proceeded by a wild chase and frankly they'd forgive us a lot but we did in the first real if the second real was a smash and really kept rolling I see mr. senate he was the judge of course of it and having a terrific sense of humor when we would

sit in the story room at that time we would have from 8 to 10 writers that was the was the we who were sitting in the story room 8 to 10 writers right so about 10 o'clock mr. senate would come up the stairs and say well boys what do you have mm-hmm all the writers would look at each other who's going to get up and tell him or before we start a picture we'd sit around like we are here now see and senate would sit with us and we'd start talking to well who's got an idea for a picture well I'd have an idea and I'd pull it see I tell him the idea and then Dell might say I think you change it we'll do it this way see then senate say yeah that's good he'd put something in it and the next one would add to what you know and but the time he'd finished the original idea was gone but he kept

improving on it all the time see man was what's max senate we always hear about a man who makes people other people laugh and he was a you know he was sad his sad fellow himself or melancholy melancholy type what do you say about that mr. Clark what's your sense of oh I think he was a great character senate and a very nice guy we all admired him very very much he was a great audience and yet he was very critical of work he wanted the best he wasn't satisfied with the mediocre he wanted the very best so we take scenes quite often you know several times or half a dozen times or more maybe but and he was a great character great he was a tough Irishman and a lovable guy you know am I right I think so I think I had Marvel sense of humor

was he'd have to have I I think oh he could success if you saw a scene I know later early he directed you didn't he but later when I came five or six years after Chester did he he would just come on the set and Estelle how things going you know we're doing a scene and he'd watch the rehearsal and you'd say well there's something wrong with the scene and he could pinpoint the trouble better than most any man I ever knew you think so that's right you could say that's the week by trying to throw that off I think the scene is good he also Andy I think you'll agree give the actors a terrific left too because if he liked the scene he had the most wonderful laugh just gave the actors a lift to hear that especially of course coming from the bug big boss that's what made him the the

big comedy producer that he was he would laugh at you you got and you do a gag and he laughed at you he had one those great big because I understand a lot of those gags or at least some of them came from the the news are using the natural world which occasionally would turn up a an event a lake draining or something of that sort that you could make a make a movie with you were telling me before about using a fire on one occasion as a as a prop for a Senate movies ever yeah that's right we just happen to be doing a fire fixture this just happened to be doing it and we were dressed as firemen you know and I came out of the restaurant one noon time right after lunch and I had to look over the hill there was a hill right in back of the Keystone studio I

couldn't look over here there's a lot of smoke coming so I went in and told Senate and he came out and saw it and boy he yelled for all the cameras there's all your cameras come on it's a real opportunity and we ran over there and this house was burning the firemen hadn't got there yet and Santa said all right go to work get to work get to work you know some of the firemen would run in you know and grab a piece of furniture and run out put it out doors and somebody else and grab and take it back in again wherever the wherever the world offers a little chance you you seized on it in those in those days yes we'd we'd seize on those things then later there'd be story written around it I suppose that the the most famous episode was the one where they were draining the I spoke about it before when they were draining Echo Park the lake here and they went on and the Senate troop went on and made a movie about let's

look at that one for a minute the keystone cops are great for some films they were great mothers and the track was always fast

well that that was maybe Mabel's muddy romance that was the title that you had applied to that film miss McWire when you were making movies in those days what was the tone of the movie making enterprise how was it frenetic was it what was the pace of it was it oh no not at all as a matter of fact these have you know play around a lot on the sets a great deal of camaraderie and matter of fact our work didn't suffer for it we accomplished just as much being you know relaxed and all as people do today don't you think so we never will behind schedule we've got our work done there was no schedule

well that's true but I mean when we stopped working you know after all we didn't go on 48 hours at a clip your sense mr. Clyde is that you never you never felt pushed is that it yeah never I don't think except the schedule usually was a month I don't know if down mentioned that the shooting schedule was a month for about a 20 minute tutorial comedy so maybe about the fifth week the director would seem that we are to finish this picture come on let's go so the so the pressure was the last week here too after that time I've been a little hoossing around yeah you know one thing that I always used to laugh at after they'd happen was that the actor never knew the next day what he was going to do the next day and I recall well we were up a truck he wasn't at Dell the snow stuff and Dell you know they could always kid you into doing something

dandy he says you get a funny scene coming up here there's a connoisseur that you know I say yeah how dangerous is it to myself you know when he says well this is where you have the horse we put the snowshoes on him and you run over there only be about a hundred yards that's what you dog so I said well I'll try out so there's about six fellas hanging on to the horses tangled you know hold them there there's two more putting snowshoes he kicks this one that flies over they get it he doesn't like snowshoes put it on again at last they get the foresee then they're hoist me up in his back and give me a smack and my camera goes the other way I go is that right that's right yeah that horse sure didn't like those shoes on the line you know he knows I get a funny gag for you tomorrow I want the funny guy and I want to enjoy the evening

telling me tomorrow morning what it is they worked a lot with animals didn't say and we did they were kind of away from the animals you mean the director was going away from the animal I don't think he ever worked but they just come over and put their on their front paws over the shoulders the big paw you know they weigh six eight hundred pounds there's land and even put their paws over the shoulders lean on you yeah but I had to do it Andy put me I had to do it first in order to convince you and Madeline Herlock that it was all right you see that skirt up there you see this one oh yes I was I understand it's possibly the kind of direction that some careers took under max and this direction was from being dead devils accident man and so on you could start that was the bottom presumably and you could rise from there to real I'm going to say that's the story of your career wasn't that right how did it go well I came

over two sonnets and after I had been there about a month the man that did all the stunt driving there was killed but not in the picture out on the freeway I think so I begged them to let me do the stunt driving which they did and I was a show for the keystone patrol and we missed the trains and at that time of course there was no such thing as running a train we had to steal it and we'd take a timetable and go out on San Fernando Road or wherever it might be in this to run it down but in the meantime after I did that for a short time the head camera man there were just learning to do double print and double exposure and trick photography so I became his assistant and after two years of that and I went with Fox and started directing Chasis and I came back to San Fernando's three years later pies throwing the pies you know tell them tell them about how it started

you was telling as well ago then I'll tell you something about it maybe Norman came down on the set Mr. Sonnet told us his book King of Comedy and Ben Turpin is working in a scene there's a carpenter having his lunch there's a piece of pie that he has laid aside and maybe looks in and at Ben Turpin picks up the piece of pie and throws it into the scene and they're shooting and it hits Turpin right in the face well they let the film run through and when I get into the projection room we saw the release some almost killed himself laughing he said that's that from now on we throw pies and we used to when I first went there we used and custard pies you know close it so mushy and one nice appearance yeah and one day one day we needed pies and the prop man went down to the

bank shop when we got the pies you get them them for ten cents a base and he didn't have any custard pies only had blackberry pies you see and so he brought up the blackberry pies well we threw one and it hit but it wasn't any good there was a tough crust on it you know so says I'll pay you that's it feeling a pie it feels the top crust off the blackberry pie and then wings and he threw that and brother that contrast to that blackberry against the white makeup you know how that photograph that black white and from then on we threw blackberry pies or raspberry finally we got it down to chocolate that tasted better now do you have a laugh will you

laugh in the days when Max had you in the projection well I'm rather a little more blasey about it now because that was like for instance the Tom Jones picture that most of my friends thought was hilariously funny the reaction of the of Tom Jones and his well the woman that could have been his mother at least she thought she might be reacting to the audience you see looking at the camera and reacting and even saying lines the director that was very funny well that to me he was just old hat what's the funniest turn dummy what what's the funniest turn you can remember and all of and all of in all the Senate you were in I just asked you right point black was yeah the funniest gag that you can remember that you were one of the funniest gags I would say was that cow gag that we did remember these two convicts the running from the police they get in the barn they find the

cow skins and they put it on because they hear someone coming it is client so he's a very old blind kind of guy an old stick and an old shaggy beer and he goes in and he says well I forget the cow's name well Mellie it's time to be milking and they hear this so now what once just the other this is all right so he brings a surgical glove a white you know he brought those things from nowhere yeah without a circle of love they can look very plausible didn't it they're quite ring up so he puts the other down and I go in and get that put down the pale in the stake and shirt you can see no milk no milk now take up the kid nice mac and Mrs come on Mellie put full and come on nice shirt and I pull the

the glove the other away and out they went in the barn that was a funny gag you ran one direction they were on the other scared you about as much as well I'll tell you that didn't do me any harm that little game there's a funny game but we got one in your mind well yes it wasn't well one of the gag just picking the gag one thing I did the gut what are the biggest laughs ever gotten my life and I do we didn't intend to be funny at all I'm asleep in bed and the line clock goes off and I get up and shut it off and get back in the bed again and the laugh was it was a riot it was the first because we found people like to laugh at themselves we've been hearing about those famous del apple in this one from the seas of the field

samsawi but no kaboom there's always room at the top it was a comedy its purpose was to make people laugh inadvertently though it

did much more as did hundreds of other senate films in part they reflected in part they created the beat of the times the temple of an industrial society with enormous appetites ambitions fantasies anxieties a society that simply can't catch its breath freeway traffic moves faster now than senate's tin lizzies ever did but it isn't funny grass is still a symbol of Hollywood visitors still come to see footprints and handprints in the sidewalk here as if they were archaeologists examining tracks in an ancient cold that movies have changed audiences have to take in not only widescreen images but talk sometimes witty sometimes not the one-time king of comedy used to take his constitutionals on Hollywood Boulevard

where cops are very serious about their work a block west of Gromans Chinese theater is this a problem house where max senate spent most of the last years of his life telling his stories and trying to sell rewrites of his most successful old screenplays some say that slapstick was never more than the child's game something for people who hadn't yet learned to repress themselves the name of good manners others say that slapstick is an echo of a permanent human need need to throw away all the rules to live for a while with the laws against cruelty speeding mashing pie throwing are suspended max senate's brand of comedy may not be the finest flower of civilization but it is a hardy perennial best and most inventive movie directors still use it although judiciously recent day practitioners of the theater of the absurd use it themselves although they turn it to their own

rather less than gleeful purposes the slapstick of the keystone comedies was a riot pure and simple for us it's become an image of the riotous disorder of the 20th century max senate created the first fully comic world cinema in the process he may well have developed the beat of modern America America America

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