A bum crawls into a barrel. The barrel begins to roll downhill in this variation on the chase comedy directed by Alice Guy.
I successfully resisted titling this review with some variation of the old joke's punchline "It's your turn in the barrel" out of respect. Although there seem to be thousands of chase comedies from this period, all alike save for the random assortment of things being chased -- beds, sausages, pumpkins, monkeys -- all exactly alike, this one manages to stand out a bit. Perhaps it is the moment when the barrel pauses; perhaps it is its encounter with the lady bicyclist. Whatever it is, it demonstrates that Alice Guy, arguably the first film director, knew how to make her work stand out at least a little in the vast crowd.
I successfully resisted titling this review with some variation of the old joke's punchline "It's your turn in the barrel" out of respect. Although there seem to be thousands of chase comedies from this period, all alike save for the random assortment of things being chased -- beds, sausages, pumpkins, monkeys -- all exactly alike, this one manages to stand out a bit. Perhaps it is the moment when the barrel pauses; perhaps it is its encounter with the lady bicyclist. Whatever it is, it demonstrates that Alice Guy, arguably the first film director, knew how to make her work stand out at least a little in the vast crowd.