Larry Semon's "The Perfect Clown" (1925)
“The Perfect Clown”
Directed by Fred Newmeyer. Cast: Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, Kate Price, Fatty Alexander, Dorothy Dwan, Curtis McHenry, Tiny Sandford, Otis Harlan, Joan Meredith. Released December 15, 1925. Source: Grapvine Video VHS.
Larry Semon enjoyed enormous popularity in the 1920s, on par with Harold Lloyd and greater than Buster Keaton. Aesthetically, he is not considered to be at either man's level. However, when exploring his films, one finds that Semon is a very unique comedian with some truly outrageous ideas. There is a madness to his work that is as fascinating as it is outrageous.
Larry Semon work fared best in small doses, his big, explosive gag ideas becoming exhausting when stretched beyond two reels. But his popularity could not be contained to the short film, and thus he experimented with full length features. Some of his longer movies are now lost ("The Girl in the Limousine" sounds quite promising if it is ever found). His feature-length work is best known by a notoriously quirky version of “The Wizard of Oz" that appalls some but fascinates others (like this reviewer).
The problem with Larry Semon at feature length is that he could not sustain six-or-seven reels by simply adding more gags. However, when one approaches Semon's work in a bluntly visceral sense, it is possible to tap into the comedian's surreal approach and connect with his comic excesses. “The Perfect Clown” is one of Semon’s most notorious feature films, as it has been pretty readily available since the era of 8mm home movie collecting. This feature contradicts some of the legend surrounding Larry Semon's career. It has a distinct narrative and does not come off as a random series of gags that offer no structure.
The plot has Larry assigned by his boss to bring $10,000 in cash to the bank and have it deposited. However, it is late, and the bank is already closed, so Larry must keep the money overnight and protect it. From this point, Semon derives a number of different gags dealing with his rather hefty responsibility. Not all of the gags work, but the sheer number of them that Semon is able to milk from his character's situation is rather remarkable. And, the film maintains an effective narrative structure. Gags build upon each other, the story progresses, and while Semon might not be the actor Lloyd or Chaplin were, nor the technical craftsman Keaton was, he succeeds admirably within his own parameters.
This is not to say that "The Perfect Clown" remains structurally sound throughout. Some mechanical scare comedy is tossed in rather clumsily when Larry and his partner, African American comedian Curtis McHenry (shockingly billed as G. Howe Black), find themselves in a graveyard at night. Their reactions to the situations are generally amusing, but the gags are hopelessly clichéd. Later scenes are much funnier -- such as when the two are accosted by escaped convicts and forced to exchange clothes with them. They must then try to subtly avoiding police while hiding their prison outfits under overcoats.
Semon's forte for wild gags abounds. One gag has Larry falling off a building in his convict uniform and landing among a group of marching policemen. Another gag shows him rolled up in a rug which is brought to the top of some steps and unraveled, causing Larry to tumble down the stairs. The concluding chase scene is typically frantic with director Fred Newmeyer nicely keeping the action in the frame. Newmeyer had helmed some of Harold Lloyd’s best work.
"The Perfect Clown" concludes amusingly when Larry finally makes it back to the firm after a night of constant outrageousness, only to discover that when he left work the day before he had taken the wrong bag and the money was safely at the office the entire night! The film's narrative arc concludes effectively, and in its process, Larry Semon explores his comic excesses with a wicked aplomb that is truly all his own.
Semon’s wife Dorothy Dwan was, by now, a regular presence in his films and is welcome and attractive. Historical significance is added by the inclusion of frequent Semon co-star Oliver Hardy in an early role before his teaming with Stan Laurel. Finally, Curtis McHenry is given a lot more to do in this film than wallow within his stereotype.
“The Perfect Clown” is by no means a perfect film. It doesn’t rank alongside the best work of Chaplin, Keaton, or Lloyd. But on its own terms, it is an amusing silent comedy that has suffered too long from a bad reputation. If anything, it proves that venturing down the bypaths of silent comedy, one can find areas of creative vision that are far outside the norm, but oddly captivating in their own off-kilter way. Larry Semon's work is consistently bigger and more outrageous than most of the other comedians working during the same period, and it captivated audiences of its time. Now, as history, it provides us with a more layered look at screen comedy's development. A comedian like Larry Semon is important not only for his period popularity but for his exploring the possibility of cinema's visual process with edgier, more surreal comedy that exploded rather than simmered.