User Reviews

This Essanay "Snakeville" comedy was recently restored from a 16mm print discovered by Chris Snowden and a partial 35mm print from the George Eastman House. The comedy in this short is about as subtle as a sledgehammer (pun intended), but there are some good gags. A count shows up in Snakeville to deliver a letter telling matronly Margaret Joslin that she has inherited a lot of money, so of course he wants to romance and marry her. Cross-eyed Ben Turpin has a couple of great gags. When the Count's hat is stuck over his head, due to a sledge-hammer, Turpin pours some gasoline on the hat and sets it on fire. That really doesn't work, much to the Count's displeasure. Later, Turpin is trying to sneak out of a second-story hotel room. He ties his bed-sheet rope to a dresser drawer, but his weight pulls the drawer out of the dresser and he tumbles down to the ground. This is no classic, but a fascinating rare Snakeville comedy.

It's dastardly doings in Snakeville as Count Victor Potel shows up with the secret information that Margaret Joslin is heir to two million dollars. He courts her, but the local swain takes afront and is willing to fight it out, with sledge hammers if he can, but with pistols if he must.

Not many of Essanay's Snakeville comedies survive, but this is a pleasant, if violent exception. Most of the gags of any value involve a non-cross-eyed Ben Turpin as the Count's inept valet, who, among other helpful actions, pours kerosene on the Count's top hat (while being worn) and sets fire to it. Turpin had been a comic with Essanay almost from the beginning. A couple of years after this, he would go to work for Mack Sennett, where his unlikely cross-eyed character would make him a popular star until his retirement to nurse his ailing wife.