The Silent Screen: Hard Boiled Yeggs (1926)

Directed by Scott (Perc) Pembroke. Starring Billy West, Ethelyn Gibson, William Dyer, Les Bates. Two Reels.

Billy West is best known for silent comedies in which he did a letter-perfect imitation of Charlie Chaplin. These films often feature Oliver Hardy in supporting roles. West also did the very funny Hairbreadth Harry series and directed Hardy and Bobby Ray in a series of comedies that were often harbingers to the later Laurel and Hardy concept.

In the 1920s, Billy produced Arrow comedies featuring himself as a dapper young man with a Chaplin-like mustache, but not as an imitator. "Hard Boiled Yeggs" is a short silent comedy featuring Billy as a recent college graduate who has inherited a sum of money and an old run-down cafe. Two thugs stand to get the inheritance in the wake of Billy's death, so they spend the entire two reels trying to kill him, while Billy manages to escape and thwart their attempts each time.

While the film's premise is simple, it is perfect for a slapstick short comedy during the silent era. And it is that variations on how the thugs try to do away with Billy, and how he manages to stop them, that make the film clever and funny. They hand him a time bomb, he throws it out the window, and it blows up on them.

There are some neat visuals (Billy taking a drink of strong liquor and spitting explosive sparks). And some funny set-pieces (a card game where Billy uses a pea shooter to keep his opponent from cheating). One great visual has Billy walking down the street with his poker winnings with a gang of thugs strategically lined up to mug him. Each one misses and tumbles behind him, while blissful Billy, counting his money, doesn't even notice.

There is a chase scene is fast paced and has some fun acrobatics, and the are many funny close-calls that conclude with Billy bopping his aggressors on the head, and not only triumphing, but becoming a hero.

"Hard Boiled Yeggs" may not have the cinematic artistry of Chaplin, Keaton, or Lloyd but it has plenty of clever, funny visual humor that sustain its two reels nicely. Billy West is one of many silent movie comedians whose work has no pretentions beyond the pure laughter that visual comedy can offer. As with most silent comedies that one finds along the lesser known bypaths, "Hard Boiled Yeggs is a lot of fun.

Only one complaint. I screened this from a Televista "Old Time Comedies" DVD volume, and while the picture quality was good, the music chosen didn't connect with the visuals at all. They used slow chamber orchestra music for fast paced slapstick comedy. It was so distracting, I screened this with the sound off (having grown up watching silents on 8mm film, that was an acceptable way to watch and appreciate this short). There are many great silent comedy accompanists available nowadays. It is a shame their work couldn't have been used for this release.