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!
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.
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.
One of the key things, in addition to our pets, that got this household through many months of lockdown in 2020-2021 was watching The Silent Comedy Watch Party, presented with wit and panache by intrepid film historians, authors and curators Ben Model and Steve Massa on Sundays.
On this Sunday, St. Patrick's Day, the series will return to YouTube for its 4th anniversary extravaganza and episode #100 - HOORAY!
One of the many things I love about the series is that, unlike 99% of silent era comedy programs, The Silent Comedy Watch Party does not limit the focus strictly to The Big 3, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.
While we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog love those guys, unquestionably the other silent movie laughmakers, lesser known but often hilarious, richly deserve kudos, bravos and huzzahs for their contributions to film humor.
It's noteworthy that acrobatic Al St. John, the ever-persnickety Johnny Arthur and wacky redhead of silents Alice Howell - all very funny performers - are featured in Silent Comedy Watch Party episode #100.
The following graphic for Silent Comedy Watch Party episode 50 shows just a few of the amazing comics featured in the series.
The dyed-in-the-wool silent comedy aficionados at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog extend big time thanks to The Silent Comedy Watch Party for repeatedly delivering big laughs during 2020, a difficult time (even for those fortunate enough to not lose family members and friends to coronavirus) and continuing to do so with good-natured enthusiasm in only slightly less bat guano crazy 2024.
We're about to watch today's much-awaited edition of the Silent Comedy Watch Party - and, not surprisingly, thinking about the great comediennes of silent pictures
One of the funniest extant Wanda comedies, A Thrilling Romance, was featured on episode 16 of The Silent Comedy Watch Party.
How Wanda did not attract the attention of Universal head Carl Laemmle and continue her career into talkies, we'll never know. Her 1925 Century Comedy The Queen Of Aces is a hoot!
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 the aforementioned Wanda Wiley, Alice Howell, Fay Tincher, Baby Peggy Montgomery and Edna Marion. The answer to the latter is the Stern Brothers, who produced over 900 comedy short subjects. The intrepid 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.
Preceding Baby Peggy and Wanda Wiley as Century Comedies headliner was Alice Howell, whose work with Sennett, Lehrman, Reelcraft and Universal demonstrates her formidable comedy mojo. The excellent writers Tony Slide and Lea Stans have covered Alice Howell at length.
We're big fans of Fay Tincher at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog.
Fay, a super-talented actress of stage and screen, passed at age 99 in Brooklyn, NY in 1983. It appears she successfully eluded any efforts to be interviewed about her career making movies and kept a low profile after her retirement from show business at the age of 46.
Fay had a 15 year movie career that spanned stints with The American Eclair Company, Komic Komedies, Triangle, Christie, and Universal.
After beginning in movies as a big time vamp in D.W. Griffith's feature The Battle Of The Sexes, Fay's screen popularity took off in 1914 with her scene-stealing antics as Ethel, the outrageous stenographer in Komic Komedies' Bill The Office Boy series.
Alas, Fay wanted more than anything to produce, direct and write and have creative control over her own films, preferably dramas. Although she did have her own production company in 1918 and made several Fay Tincher comedies for World Pictures, for the most part, that scenario was not to be, with the shift from the wild and wooly days of early motion pictures to the studio system already well underway when she began working for Al Christie in 1919.
A few entries from Fay's Christie Comedies series survive, and, as much as she wanted to be a dramatic actress, these films - very likely much to her chagrin - are hilarious. One film that has made it to DVD and is especially memorable stars the indefatigable Fay as as the badass "Christie cowgirl," the personification of a "pistol packin' mama."
Fay was on record as finding the Christie Comedies too slapstick-oriented for her taste. This may be due to various injuries suffered doing stunts as rugged, take-no-prisoners Rowdy Ann in the western comedies series, as well as an impression on Fay's part that she would get to star in 5-reel featurettes at Christie Comedies and pursue storylines more along the lines of the genteel and sophisticated farces exemplified by Mr. And Mrs. Sidney Drew.
For the remainder of the silent era, Fay starred in various Universal comedies, most notably as Min Gump in "The Gumps" series. Her last silver screen appearance (and only talkie) was a supporting part in a Universal Syd Saylor 2-reeler released theatrically in March 1930.
In addition to the Topeka-born actress' talents in front of and behind the camera, she was an athlete and accomplished craftswoman/seamstress, devoted to needlework and creating artwork using vitreous enamel.
Ringing out July 2020, not at all happily, with the passings of guitar genius Peter Green, actress, author and scat singer supreme Annie Ross, silver screen legend Olivia DeHavilland and Danish film music composer/pianist Bent Fabricius-Bjerre A.K.A. Bent Fabric - all favorites at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog - leaves one pondering how the heck to ring in August 2020.
Good news? The blogmeister has, with the exception of grocery shopping, stayed home, washed his hands according to Alton Brown's helpful instructions, wore a stylish jet-black face mask whenever leaving the house and, as the new month begins, happily can attest that he's not dead - and here to write the August 1, 2020 blog post!
Today's lineup begins with Pep Up (1929 - Educational Pictures) starring Cliff Bowes.
Then it's on to Love's Young Scream (1928) a very funny 1-reeler produced by Christie Comedies featuring Anne Cornwall and Jack Duffy and episode 20 of The Silent Comedy Watch Party's piece-de-resistance, Fluttering Hearts (1927 - Hal Roach Studio), starring Charley Chase, Oliver Hardy and Martha Sleeper. Thanks a million, Ben Model, Steve Massa and Mana Allen!
We're delighted to hear that Ben is spearheading a Kickstarter for The Everett Edward Horton DVD Project. The fundraiser runs through August 17.
The gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are enthusiastic fans of Mr. Horton, from his late 1920's silent comedies produced by Harold Lloyd to his brilliant comedy relief work in Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers pictures, inspired narration of Jay Ward Productions' Fractured Fairy Tales and memorable work in a host of enjoyably silly 1960's sitcoms, including F-Troop. The gang here is happy to contribute to this Kickstarter!
Last Sunday's episode included, as half of a 1913 Keystone split reel, A Little Hero (starting at 50:41 in The Silent Comedy Watch Party ep. 19 program), featuring a cast of intrepid fur-bearing stars, led by Pepper the Cat. LOVED IT!
There are numerous heroic canines, led by Pete the Pup of Our Gang and Luke of the Sennett and Arbuckle Comique short subjects, in silent movies. One of our favorites is Cameo the Dog. Here's a crude video copy of a Mack Sennett comedy featuring canine comedienne Cameo, who clearly gets the best of his human co-stars Billy Bevan and Harry Gribbon.
Pepper the Cat and the blogmeister's intrepid felines at home DEMAND equal time - so here's Otto Messmer's Felix the Cat.
We at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, which devoted Memorial Day Weekend 2020 to silent era cartoons, enthusiastically support animation produced from Winsor McCay's heydey through the pre-Code era, but has never devoted any posts to the silent Disneys. . . until now. . McCay, Cohl, Fleischer and Otto Messmer, yes, many times. Walt Disney's pre-Mickey Mouse cartoons from the 1920's, covered in depth in Russell Merritt and J.B. Kaufman's Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney book, no.
Am partial to the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit series over Disney's Alice in Cartoonland, partly due to the more advanced animation in the 1927-1928 series. There was even a terrific book by David A. Bossert, J.B. Kaufman (Foreword) and David Gerstein (Archival Support) devoted to the Disney Oswalds.
For cartoon fans, it's of interest to see the distinctive animation, particularly in the Oswald the Lucky Rabbits made by Disney by 1920's Disney collaborators - those who left when Charles Mintz bought the rights to the character - such as Hugh Harman, Rudy Ising, Rollin Hamilton and Friz Freleng.
Many of our favorite DVDs and Blu-rays of early animation have been from Tommy Jose Stathes' Cartoon Roots series. We were delighted to be involved in the Kickstarter that got the ball rolling on the Cartoon Roots compilation The Bray Studios: Animation Pioneers back in 2015 and devote a blog post to said fundraiser.
After all, the Fleischer Brothers Studio, Earl Hurd, Paul Terry and Walter Lantz all cranked out cartoons for J.R. Bray during the silent era.
The subsequent Cartoon Roots: Bobby Bumps & Fido Blu-Ray from Tommy and Cartoons on Film ranks high on the Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog list of favorite silent cartoon compilations.
The animation of Earl Hurd broke new ground and the Bobby Bumps series no doubt influenced everything from the Reg'lar Fellers comic strip by Gene Byrnes to the Hal Roach Studio's Our Gang to the sound era cartoons of Walt Disney and Chuck Jones' crew at Warner Brothers Animation.
Alas, COVID-19 is still beating the you-know-what out of the U S of A on 8-1-2020, so it appears we will be staying at home, social distancing and attempting to stay safe for the foreseeable future - who knows, it may be many months into next year - so bring on the classic comedies and cartoons!
During extended sheltering-in-place thanks to That Darn Pandemic, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are pleased as pomegranates to see fellow archivists, friends, historians, classic movie and animation buffs stepping up to the plate with much needed entertainment.
On Facebook Friday nights at 8:00 p.m. Sci Fi Bob Ekman, my friend and guru of the Kodak Pageant 250S, presents a weekly slice of the Psychotronix Film Festival. Do I miss my cohorts, Sci Fi Bob, Robert Emmett, Scott Moon, Gary "The Poster King" Hascall and the gang from KFJC??? F¶*^#¡£¢¡¶$£%&~≠ YEAH!! Is it fun to see hand-picked psychotronic flicks from the Sci Fi Bob Archives, projected in glorious 16mm straight from the booth at Derek Zemrak's movie palace in Orinda, California? Again, F¶*^$#¡£¢¶¡$%&~≠ YEAH!!!
We've mentioned the monthly Cartoon Carnival programs presented by Tommy Stathes quite a few times on this blog. These fun programs had been simulcast on Facebook, which was fantastic for us who could not make it down to Brooklyn to be there in person.
Now none of us are going anywhere, so Tommy will be presenting an all-new Cartoon Carnival online from home on Facebook tomorrow afternoon at 3:00 p.m. EST.
And, speaking of cohorts from past movie events, horror host Mr. Lobo presents Cinema Insomnia on Facebook weekly, late nights on Saturday, starting at 10:00 p.m. EST.
The last streaming Cinema Insomnia episode featured one of the most misunderstood movies of all misunderstood movies, a Filipino horror flick that struck this viewer as a gorier (and only marginally more competent) version of Manos: The Hands Of Fate, but with even worse hairdos and tacky early 1970's fashions. Mr. Lobo and Miss Mittens co-host!
Sunday afternoons at 3:00 p.m. EST, silent movie experts Ben Model and Steve Massa present The Silent Comedy Watch Party on YouTube. To watch this Sunday's show, go to the YouTube channel. The past five episodes have, as all of the aforementioned watch parties, provided and continue to provide sorely needed LAUGHS!
Silent Comedy Watch Party logo by Marlene Weisman
Thanks to a very generous OK from Serge Bromberg of Lobster Films (Paris) to include short subjects he has produced for DVD/Blu-ray release, this Sunday's show includes a Lobster release from the Blackhawk Films Collection.
That would be His Wooden Wedding, one of the funniest comedy short subjects ever made, directed by Leo McCarey and starring the one, the only Charley Chase.
There are terrific comedies every week, representing the gamut of silent movie funmakers.
Opening for Charley is It's Me (1927), a comedy rarity starring Monty Collins and directed by Harry Sweet. This is from a transfer of the only known print, a very rare 16mm from the collection of cartoonist Kim Deitch, and unavailable on DVD. Also on the program, thanks to the EYE Filmmuseum, is She Cried, a 1912 Vitagraph short subject starring and written by Florence Turner, prolific star of movies in Great Britain and America. This was preserved by the EYE Filmmuseum (Netherlands), from a 35mm original print in the Jean Desmet Collection.
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