Mabel was one of those who “made” screen comedy having, as
she said: “…no precedent, nothing to imitate… I had to cleave a new path to
laughter.” Whilst that sounds suspiciously like studio guff, it’s pretty much
what happened for a woman who wrote and directed her own films and mentored
Charlie Chaplin amongst others.
Arguments still rage – you know what cineastes are like –
about how much that mentoring involved but looking at Mabel’s films pre-Charlie
you can see how much of his gestures, reactions, and sensibilities came from
her…. Also, it’s impossible not to look at her face-pulling and not see Stan
Laurel’s defeated innocence there too.
His partner Oliver Hardy was in tonight’s programme, along
with Charlie, Roscoe Arbuckle, Mack Sennett (of course) and Ford Sterling. The
boys are funny but Mabel, Mabel understands…
Normand became an artist’s model at 14 and at 17 she starred
in her first film going on to make Her Awakening (1911) with DW Griffith and William
J. Humphrey’s Tale of Two Cities (1911) – both when she was just 18. She
started a relationship with Mack Sennett who saw more than comic potential in
the perfectly natural performer with no theatrical training and, the rest is
history…
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| Writer, performer, stunt person... director: pioneer |
Tonight’s completion is part of the BFI’s Sonic Cinema
strand as well as it’s Comedy Genius programme which runs up until the New Year
with funny films both silent and sound. Tonight, was a live performance of four
Mabel Normand films that will be playing across the country over the next few
months.
Meg Morley a regular silent film accompanist is also an
accomplished jazz musician and here she has been given the chance to combine
both interests by accompanying Mabel with her Trio – a score jazzed up with
improvisations with the pianist, double bass player Richard Sadler and drummer
Emiliano Caroselli showing the intuitive musical connection you would expect yet
all watching the films and working with Mabel not around or over her.
Normand has a quick wit and her face emotes in double time
as the broader strokes of her comedy unwind in plots of confusion, reaction and
ill-tempered misunderstandings.
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| Mabel's Blunder... |
She disguises herself as her brother (Al St. John) who chauffeurs
them off to an afternoon party whilst her brother dresses as Mabel and, with
face covered in a veil, still gets plenty of attention from dad. The truth is
revealed at the party where we also meet Harry’s pal Billy Bronx (played by a
young fella name of Charley Chase who, mark my words, will one day be big in
talking pictures!).
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| Mack Sennett and Roscoe Arbuckle watch Mabel on screen |
Mack is engaged to Mabel but he’s distracted by Virginia Kirtley – not for the first time – and drives Mabel away. She becomes a movie star – Mabel was one of the first to have her name in film titles and this rather meta reference shows the audacity of the Sennett group as they set the template – and Mack soon discovers what he’s missing.
Mack watches his former love in a movie theatre and is
beside himself, unable to separate fiction from reality, much to the annoyance
of his neighbour played by Roscoe Arbuckle. He tries to shoot the baddie in the film –
Ford Sterling (and who wouldn’t!) only to find he’s happily married to Mabel.
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| Responsible parenting... |
His Trysting Place
(1914) showed that Normand and Chaplin were amongst the highest energy double
acts in slapstick with the two trading gags, falls and blows at the rate of at
least one every few seconds, sometimes more. Their punishing scenes in the kitchen
would have been improvised but when Charlie picks up their baby by the scruff of
his neck, walks in to make himself comfortable on the kid’s crib and then hands
him a six-shooter to play with, you know we’re reached a higher level of daft.
This was the funniest film and if this was Mabel mentoring our
Charlie, it was as much a joy to watch as Charlie Parker’s improvisational
bouts with Dizzy Gillespie, John and Paul trying to out-write the other or Cleese/Chapman
trying to outthink Palin/Jones… red-hot talents trying to outdo the others to
the benefit of all.
By the time of Should Men
Walk Home? (1927) Mabel was not in the best of health when she made this,
her final film but she’s still recognisably the star of Mickey and all those Sennett classics. It’s odd to see her in late
twenties fashions but she carries it off alongside Creighton Hale who is as
funny as I’ve ever seen him – I loved it when he corpses playing a statue
spouting water… The pair play a couple of crooks in search of a necklace at a
society party and in addition to being pursued by Eugene Pallette they also
have a robust encounter with a Mr Oliver Hardy.
Meg’s trio played some swinging tunes accompanying the rhythms
of the humour with rag-time and twenties swing – they were tight and they were
flowing with their lead’s silent film experience keeping the jam in tune with
the action on screen. This isn’t free jazz but improvisation within tight
boundaries and all the more so because of the need to score a narrative: it was
a blast and they found so much freedom within this tightest of “briefs”. They
soul of early jazz was there but there was a modern sensibility which helped
bring Mabs right up to now.
The Mabel Normand tour continues through the next few months
nationwide, check the BFI site for details as they are confirmed. This woman was the first of either
sex to throw a custard pie, she broke the fourth wall to glance directly at the
audience before anyone else and she was a great collaborator: The Godmother of Slapstick
and much else besides.
Mabel Normand was a one-off and her time has come again: make
mine Mabs!
