Today we celebrate the 20th anniversary of this blog - thrilled and delighted to still be here and eking out a post weekly - with the following contribution to the 2026 Silent Movie Day Blogathon, hosted by The Everyday Cinephile and Silentology. The spotlight's on favorite comedians who brought the laughs and no doubt would be most amused to know they are still doing so 100+ years after their heydey. We'll start with the toast of Great Britain, the most adept acrobatic comedian not named Buster Keaton or Al St. John, Lupino Lane.
Before becoming the king of London's musical theatre in Me & My Girl and swinging The Lambeth Walk, Mr. Lane tumbled, climbed and somersaulted his way through numerous classic comedy shorts in the teens and 1920's.
Silent comedy expert Steve Massa adds: Lupino Lane was an international stage star, and, along with Douglas Fairbanks and Buster Keaton, one of the great acrobats and comic action heroes of the movies. Born in London in 1892, he was part of the Lupino family—a famous theatrical clan that started its reign in the 1600s. Stanley and Barry Lupino, very popular in England, were cousins and Stanley’s daughter Ida Lupino became a big movie star in America.
Lane began his career as a child in pantomime, under the tutelage of his father Harry, and became known as “Little Nipper,” or just Nip for short. He had a thorough training in tumbling, juggling, mime and even shooting through “star traps” (trap doors in the stage floor that were connected to catapults that would allow a performer to suddenly pop into a scene).
Only Me is an especially stellar Lupino Lane comedy short.
He plays a slew of parts, a la Buster Keaton's The Playhouse.
Lupino Lane is the equivalent of a whirling dervish in many of his 1920's starring vehicles. The stunts in Sword Points must be seen to be believed.
Directors of the diminutive whirlwind's action-packed adventures included Roscoe Arbuckle and Jack "Preston Black" White.
He and his talented brother - and frequent co-star - Wallace Lupino make like Doug Fairbanks, poke fun at "the glory that was Rome" and tear up antiquity in Roaming Romeo (1928).
While Lane is outstanding and charming in such talkies as The Love Parade, the sheer physical comedy that fills the 2-reelers he starred in for Educational Pictures (a.k.a. The Spice Of The Program) is something to behold.
The nimble Lupino Lane brings us to another nimble comic who starred in movies both in the United States and Europe, Marcel Perez (1884-1929).
For those who haven't seen Marcel Perez, also known as Ferdinand Perez and Marcel Fabre, he was a pioneering, irreverent and dancer-like comedian who gleefully thumbed his nose at the pomposity and conventions of the early 20th century.
Between 1900 and 1923, he starred in 200+ films under a slew of different character names (Robinet, Bungles, Tweedy, Tweedledum, Twede-Dan), both in Europe and America. Talented leading ladies Nilde Barrachi and Dorothy Earle shine in supporting roles.
There's a sleight of hand recalling the graceful deftness of Max Linder while also a more cartoony sleight of hand that brings to mind both the earliest European screen clowns and a key contemporary, the popular American silent movie comedian who quite literally was the son of a professional magician, Larry Semon, known as Ridolini to those who saw his films on European television.
The Extraordinary Adventures Of Saturnino Farandola is a particularly amazing Marcel Perez opus.
For more Marcel. . .
And if you can't wait for delivery, check out the following playlist - and read silent era comedy expert Steve Massa's book Marcel Perez: The International Mirth-maker.
Next task: delight in watching these two great movie comedians on Blu-ray and DVD (courtesy of David Glass and Undercrank Productions) on National Silent Movie Day - and thank Silentology and The Everyday Cinephile for hosting this blogathon.
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