Born on this day in 1902: the "daredevil comedienne", stuntwoman and comic actress Wanda Wiley, star of very funny films for Century Comedies and J.R. Bray Productions. Starting her movie career doing stunt work in westerns, Wanda, a cross between the winsome comedienne and an action hero, made 50 films between 1924 and 1927.
A longer version of this Century Comedy, the wonderfully frantic A SPEEDY MARRIAGE, was featured in episode 78 of The Silent Comedy Watch Party. It's the last film and begins an hour and six minutes into the show. Thanks, Ben Model and Steve Massa!
Way too many silent movie comediennes were entirely ignored for decades and decades, primarily because they did not star in comedies produced by Hal Roach Studios and Mack Sennett or feature films.
The Century Comedies star and stuntlady is in the jaunty heroic mold of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Harold Lloyd, who she shares the 4/20 birthday with.
From San Antonio, Wanda Wiley's sensibility is that of gal next door who happens to be a daredevil, not dissimilar from Madcap Mabel Normand in A Dash Through The Clowds (1912) - and yes, she races cars in FLYING WHEELS!
She is not the traditional comedienne turned leading lady (Billie Rhodes, Bebe Daniels), the glamour girl who sometimes does pratfalls (Marion Davies, Carole Lombard), a feisty "don't you mess with me" firebrand (Fay Tincher) or the "baggy pants comedienne" persona seen from Gale Henry, Louise Fazenda and Alice Howell to Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett. Possibly Wanda's characterization was modeled on the ever-plucky Constance "Dutch" Talmadge, tied with Mabel Normand as silent cinema's top comedienne in feature films. She does share charisma, spunk and athleticism with Talmadge and Fay Tincher.
As seen in her extant films, WandaVision 1925 is a very cool place!
Her 1925 Century Comedy The Queen Of Aces is a hoot!
One of the funniest extant Wanda comedies remains the action-packed A Thrilling Romance. Here is a slightly truncated version.
A more complete version of A Thrilling Romance was featured, in between Jimmie Parrott and Buster Keaton, on episode 16 of The Silent Comedy Watch Party. It's the second film and begins at 39:23.
In 1926, Wanda appears to have been demoted from star of her own series to secondary player in a new series. Why? Who knows? This was not unheard of at Universal, where top comedienne Alice Howell transitioned from headliner to supporting player.
Perhaps the powers that were at Universal feared Wanda would ask for a raise and a promotion. The subsequent What Happened To Jane? series Wanda co-starred in shifts the focus to the male leads.
The much less talented and interesting (a.k.a. dull as dishwater) male leads make Wanda a second banana in the What Happened To Jane? series.
Yes, that's right, Universal and Stern Brothers productions discontinued Wanda Wiley's starring vehicles but, hoping to compete with Hal Roach's Our Gang, launched the successful Buster Brown comedies and then, aspiring to counter Sennett's The Smith Family series, followed it with the Newlyweds & Their Baby series, featuring Sunny Jim McKeen as Snookums. This series of short subjects (and Sunny Jim, the kid with the Ed Grimley hairdo) can be excruciating, and come across more as funny-weird than funny-humorous.
How Wanda Wiley, the personalty plus girl, did not attract the attention of Universal head Carl Laemmle and continue her career into talkies, we'll never know. This brings to mind the question of how many of the LOTS and LOTS of silent film comediennes starred for Universal and who produced these fast-paced, sight gag-filled 2-reelers.
The answer to the former includes Wanda Wiley, Alice Howell, Fay Tincher, Baby Peggy Montgomery, Edna Marion and many more. The answer to the latter would be Julius Stern and Abe Stern, the brother-in-laws of Carl Laemmle and producers of over 900 films, mostly comedies.
The outstanding cinema detective, author and film historian Thomas Reeder has focused two books on the comedy that emerged from Universal in the teens and 1920's - and the second one, Time is Money! The Century, Rainbow, and Stern Brothers Comedies of Julius and Abe Stern, covers their lives and movie career in detail. It would appear from the surviving footage that Wanda Wiley's best films were from the first year of her Universal series produced by the Stern brothers in 1924-1925.
Alas, and unfortunately, Hal Roach, Mack Sennett and Jack White (at Educational Pictures) did not step in at the point in 1927-1928 and hire Wanda to headline a series. Too bad - maybe the unexpected impact of The Jazz Singer was a factor. In a move that got me thinking of Paramount Pictures and the Fleischer brothers, Universal cut ties with the Stern Brothers in 1929.
Wanda made a few more movies, very briefly returned to vaudeville, then married well and gave up showbiz in 1933. There is a mention in Anthony Balducci's superlative book Lloyd Hamilton: Poor Boy Comedian of Silent Cinema of a severe accident on set in which Wanda was thrown from a horse. The response of famed superhero Captain Obvious would be that perhaps this was the reason Wanda did not continue in motion pictures. As athletic, fearless, intrepid and super-fit as Wanda was, getting thrown from a horse could emphatically influence one to seek a less dangerous line of work.
Tips of the top hat worn by Roscoe Arbuckle in The Rounders go to Matthew Ross' article, Wonderful Wanda Wiley, an abbreviated version of a very good overview of her life and career he penned for issue 13 of The Lost Laugh magazine, as well as John Bengston's two terrific posts from his always informative Silent Locations blog about the Century Comedies star and where her films were shot in Hollywood.
Additional battered top hat tips go to the April 20, 2023 post about Wanda from Travalanche and to Steve Massa, for writing his Slapstick Divas book about the many super-talented comediennes of silent pictures.
Bravos, kudos and huzzahs to Mr. Reeder, Mr. Massa, Mr. Ross (and The Lost Laugh) and, for much of the footage in today's post, the Library Of Congress. We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog applaud the excellent research that has brought the spotlight back to Wanda Wiley, the superb daredevil comedienne. Now we'll watch a slew of super-talented comediennes and character actresses who are still with us in April 2024 get big laughs in the Palm Royale series.
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