Silent Reels, by Rodney Schroeter
     Column #7:  Larry Semon's Wizard of Oz

     The 1925 version of The Wizard of Oz, directed by and
starring Larry Semon, is one of the weirdest, wackiest movies
I've ever seen.
     Larry Semon was born in 1889.  According to the Motion
Picture Studio Directory and Trade Annual, 1920, published by
Motion Picture News, Inc., he played on stage as a child with his
father, Zera Semon.  He went on to become a professional
magician, a cartoon artist, and a tumbler in vaudeville.  Film
titles he worked in for Vitagraph include Players and Puppy Love,
Rooftops and Ruffians, Huns and Hyphens, Pluck and Plotters,
Traps and Tangles, Scamps and Scandals, and The Head Waiter. 
(Shucks, that last one broke the pattern!)
     Semon's films became very popular.  One person who attests
to this was Oliver Hardy, who worked quite a bit with him.  In
John McCabe's book (see the list of references toward the end),
Hardy is quoted:  "No one was bigger than Larry when he was on
top.  He was a good comedian--a very good acrobatic comedian--and
he always knew a good gag when he saw one.  He used to have a
little black book that he'd keep in his back trouser pocket. 
That little book was worth thousands and thousands of dollars
because he always kept all his comedy ideas in it.  I never saw
anyone work harder at making a gag work out, except maybe Stan."
     (Stan Laurel also worked--briefly--with Semon.  According to
Randy Skretvedt, the association "was abruptly terminated when
Semon thought Stan was getting too many laughs."  And Walter Kerr
writes that Stan "worked for Larry Semon, where he was reportedly
tied to a tree to keep him from outracing and outmugging Mr.
Semon.")
     As Semon's fame increased, so did artistic control over his
own work.  More money became available and, unfortunately, he
became too extravagant, making it difficult for his pictures to
earn back the money put into them.  "He helped bring about his
own downfall," Hardy said, in McCabe's book.  "I can remember one
instance that was typical.  Understand this now.  We were doing a
two-reeler called The Sawmill.  Just a regular two-reeler, to be
done on a regular two-reeler budget, which wasn't a lot.  But
Larry took us up on location and I mean location.  It was a North
Woods picture, and Larry took a very big company up into the
wilds of the California mountains.  He built--believe it or not--
he built permanent log cabins and buildings for a full company
with all the comforts of life, and we spent about three months on
that picture.  Vitagraph after a while insisted that he become
his own producer because they just weren't going to foot all
those bills.  And then when the bills started to come in, he'd
worry--but then he was always worrying, and the funny thing is
that he was never able to figure out why things weren't going
well for him.  We always had a lot of fun, and I loved working
for Larry, but you can't have a lot of fun and make a lot of
money--not under those conditions anyway."
     Kathryn Leigh Scott writes, "Once a millionaire, who briefly
enjoyed a popularity rivaling that of Chaplin and Lloyd, the
broken and bankrupt Semon suffered a nervous breakdown and died
of pneumonia in New York in 1928 at the age of thirty-nine." 
(Her book features a lobby card, bearing a strikingly frightful
closeup of Semon, from his 1920 short, The Suitor.)
     Semon's version of The Wizard of Oz is not for everyone. 
Walter Kerr, for example, called it "a film that ought to have
bankrupted everyone associated with it."  I admit that I enjoyed
it very much.  Your own reaction to it will likely be one of the
following:  Total revulsion; utter hilarity; a sudden and deep
lapse into psychosis.
     The movie has little to do with the original Oz stories.  It
is narratively disjointed (hey, there's a new phrase for you),
and doesn't even have a satisfactory conclusion.  And the whole
story isn't even happening--it's being told by an old man to his
granddaughter.  (He's reading it out of an Oz book, but he's
certainly changing things at whim as he goes along.)
     The story starts in Oz.  The Wizard, a phony poseur with no
powers whatever, tries to impress Lady Vishus and Prime Minister
Kruel, who are threatening to take over the political scene.  The
Wizard conjures up a beautiful, magical dancing lady.  (This
"Phantom of the Basket," as "she" is referred to in the credits,
is played by Frederick KoVert.  I hesitate to speculate.)  An
unimpressed Prince Kynd (say, can you tell the good guys from the
bad guys here?) says, "That's a lot of applesauce!"  Remember
that expression?
     The honest people of Oz want their queen, Dorothy.  But
Dorothy vanished when she was an infant, eighteen years before.
     I'm impatient with this story.  So is the little girl that
Grampy is reading to.  So we go to Kansas.
     Dorothy lives on a farm with her Aunt Em and Uncle Frank. 
Larry Semon and Oliver Hardy are farm hands.  Both are admirers
of Dorothy's.
     There is a long series of gags and mishaps that have
absolutely nothing to do with the story.  Larry is kicked into a
cactus patch by a mule.  (Do cacti grow in Kansas?)  Barrels full
of milk or whitewash go flying and crashing on people.  A goose
steals Larry's lollipop.  Larry tries to whack the goose with a
stick as it pokes its head through a hole in the fence.  But the
goose squirts Larry with some milky substance.  An animated swarm
of bees menaces Larry and the others.  A bee crawls into one of
Larry's ears--and crawls out the other ear.
     Semon's comedy is very physical, and filled with stunts that
will leave one side of the audience yowling, "Wow!!" while the
other side howls "Yow!!"
     Another farm hand is a black man named Snowball, played by
G. Howe Black.  And--wait a minute!  Is that a racist slur?  Some
people will interpret it as such.  Well, what to do about it? 
Censor it?  That's just what the Politically Correct would
advocate--violate an actual right (the right to free speech), in
an attempt to protect an alleged, but impossible and non-existent
right:  the right to not be offended.  But let's be consistent
here (for, one test of a principle's validity is whether it can
be applied consistently, given the context which defines it; a
false principle cannot, while a true principle not only can be,
but should be).  I have the same right to not be offended.  It
offends me that popular culture, especially movies, portrays one
segment of our society in the most viciously slanted,
stereotypical way.  I refer to a type of person who is
responsible for, and should be thanked for (not condemned, as
they are), our current high standard of living and our high life-
expectancy.  The group Ayn Rand identified, in her 1961 article,
as "America's Persecuted Minority--Big Business."
     Had enough?  All right, back to Oz, where the evil schemers,
fearful of a popular uprising, fly to Kansas in an airplane,
intending to fetch Dorothy, return her, and placate the populace. 
It's then that Uncle Frank explains to Dorothy that she was left
on their doorstep as an infant.  He digs up the documents that
prove her identity.
     The villains want Dorothy, and they want those documents. 
Hardy, thinking he sees a chance to win her, makes a deal with
the Oz men.  Semon starts fighting with him.  They battle at the
top of a double silo, Semon falling onto a cart of hay, Hardy
falling on the ground, hard.
     Uncle Frank won't yield the documents, so the crooks hoist
Dorothy to the top of a water tower, dangling her by a rope
around her waist, and build a fire under the rope.  The rope
breaks, but Larry reaches the spot below her, just in time for
her to fall on him.
     A terrific storm comes up.  Lightning starts persecuting
Larry, knocking off his hat, then his bow tie.  The storm's fury
increases.  Larry, Dorothy, Uncle Frank, Aunt Em, and Hardy take
refuge in a shed.  The farm buildings, the silos, are all blown
away and their shed shelter tumbles into the air.  G. Howe Black
starts running, is blown into the air, chased by lightning, and
he catches up to the shed.
     They land in Oz, a very visually impressive place, and
someone says, "I wonder where we are!" (properly using the
declarative rather than the interrogative punctuation).  Semon
and Hardy escape from the corrupt Oz officials (the others are
taken prisoner) and, to escape death, they disguise themselves--
Hardy as a Tin Woodsman, and Semon as a living Scarecrow.
     If I've indicated that this movie is far from perfect, I
want to state this:  Semon's personification of the Scarecrow,
with nose painted black and large circles around his eyes, is one
of the most appealing characters I've ever seen on the screen. 
And his act as the Scarecrow, which comes an hour into the film,
is all too brief.  When he first reveals himself, he lets the
phoney Wizard in on the deception with a perfect example of a
Classic Wink.
     The Classic Wink consists of the following.  Person A, in on
the gag, tilts his head slightly and winks (opening the mouth
slightly is optional).  Person B, eager to be in on the gag, too,
moves his head in a cane shape--up slightly at first, to the side
a little, then down.  The wink is performed, and (again, opening
the mouth is optional) the jaw is thrust to the same side as the
winking eye.  (I have yet to do a detailed analysis on left vs.
right-side winking.)  Another excellent example of the Classic
Wink is to be found in Harold Lloyd's Safety Last (1923), where
Harold is discovered in the boss's office by an office boy. 
(Someone please tell me who played that kid, and whether he went
on working in movies.)
     The evil Ozzies throw Semon and Black into the dungeon. 
Hardy throws in with the bad guys.  Black dresses up as an
outrageously fake Lion, and guess what--he's Cowardly!  One of
the dungeon's worst tortures is to be thrown into a vat of
chocolate, or mud, or both.  And there are real lions, which sets
up the obvious though still humorous situation of the Scarecrow
being followed by a real lion, while thinking it's the disguised
Black.
     Black jumps out of a window, and does an incredible series
of flopping somersaults down a hill.  In one uninterrupted shot,
he does at least ten forward rolls.  Have the remote ready, to
rewind this part and play it over.
     There is no conclusive ending to this film, and I won't give
away what it is.
     I've made a big deal in past columns, just how great it can
be to share a silent film with children.  So, you might
justifiably ask, how is this one with kids?  I can relate two
anecdotes.  First, I lent it to a friend, who played it for her
own children and a few other kids.  During the film, there were
cries of protest:  "What's this?" and "Turn on something else!" 
But every time she asked whether she should turn it off, she was
shouted down by those who wanted to see it.  Second, I showed it
to my nieces, age five and nine.  Early in the film, the older
girl turned to me in frustration and said, "I don't know what's
all going on."  I had to admit to her, "I don't, either."  An
unqualified success?  Nothing like it, if one compares their
reactions to a typical Keaton or Lloyd masterpiece.  On the other
hand, they sat and watched it, and found it entertainingly
humorous.

Credits for Wizard of Oz:
Dorothy Dwan -- Dorothy
Mary Carr -- Aunt Em
Virginia Pearson -- Lady Vishus
Bryant Washburn -- Prince Kynd
Josef Swickard -- Prime Minister Kruel
Charles Murray -- The Wizard
Oliver N. Hardy -- Farm hand / Tin Woodsman
William Hauber
William Dinus
Frank Alexander -- Uncle Henry
Otto Lederer -- Ambassador Wikked  
Frederick KoVert -- Phantom of the Basket
Larry Semon -- Farm hand / Scarecrow
G. Howe Black -- Snowball / Cowardly Lion

     I've seen a few of Semon's shorts (short films, that is). 
Many feature Semon's wife, Dorothy Dwan, as well as Oliver Hardy,
the very large Frank Alexander, and G. Howe Black (anyone know
what this guy's real name was?).  I sent Super Sleuths the price
for a typical video, and asked them to put as many short silents
on as they could.  They sent me a tape with the Semon comedies
described in the paragraphs below.
     These wild pieces feature incredible sight gags and real
stunts.  People soaked in ink, or plaster; dives out of 3rd-story
windows onto the pavement; a dive off the high mast of a boat
into the water; swinging on ropes; chewing-tobacco jokes; dope
gags (with an accidentally doped Semon doing a psychedelic
dance); bodies flying through the air, diving into rain barrels &
bursting them.

     Her Boy Friend (1924)
     Larry is a detective after some bootleggers.  The lady
detective helping him is certainly no helpless simp; she climbs
buildings and jumps out of a high window into a fireman's net. 
Larry is rendered goofy when a vamp blows smoke (of a
questionable nature) into his mouth with her cigarette holder.

     The Sleuth (1922)
     Once again a detective, Larry pretends to be an evil man's
chauffeur.  He runs the car into a wall, bending the tires.  As
the auto wobbles down the road, it vibrates so badly that pieces
fall from it, leaving little but the chassis by the time they
reach their destination.

     Well I'll Be (1919)
     Larry is a frontier town sheriff.  A villain offers a fair
maiden a drink.  She sniffs it, shakes her head in disgust, and
throws the drink away.  A cowboy catches the stream of liquid in
his mouth!  At the end, Semon falls and, facing the camera,
mouths the words "Well I'll be--" and something that sure looks
like "ham."

     The Bell Hop (1921)
     The lobby of a hotel is so crowded, a traffic cop is needed
to direct movement.  A little girl discovers a wonderful fish
bowl with--what fun!--salamanders.  Just the kind of thing you'd
expect to see in a hotel lobby.  She tosses one on Larry, and he
goes into a Classic Wiggle.  Hardy plays a desk clerk who is
furiously frustrated with Larry.

     The Bakery (1922)
     Larry is a worker in--aw, you guessed it.  Oliver Hardy is
the boss.
     A mouse crawls down a woman customer's back, and Larry has
an ingenious method of drawing it out.  He has her put her head
down, then lightly rubs the exposed skin of her neck with a
cheese.  The mouse can't resist, and when it pokes its little
head out from the woman's dress, Larry whacks it with a sack of
flour.  This causes the black cat to jump into a barrel of flour. 
It pokes its powdered head out in wide-eyed perplexity.
     The various hijinks in this film made me think, sadly, of my
5-week job in a cheese factory.  All those missed opportunities
for hilarity.  Those chutes down which fresh, wiggly logs of
Provolone would slide down, into vats of greenish salt water... 
I wonder if a human body could have fit on one of those chutes. 
Well, maybe not Oliver Hardy's body.

     Books quoted in this article:

In print:
     The Silent Clowns by Walter Kerr (ISBN 0-306-80387-9). 
There is a short but informative and perceptive write-up on Semon
in a chapter called "Some Imperfect Clowns."

     Laurel and Hardy, The Magic Behind the Movies by Randy
Skretvedt (ISBN 0-940410-29-X).  A wonderful book about Stan &
Ollie, featuring many photos, one of which is Larry Semon,
Dorothy Dwan, and Oliver & Myrtle Hardy attending the premiere of
"The Wizard of Oz."

Not in print (but I wish they were!):
     Mr. Laurel & Mr. Hardy by John McCabe, first copyright 1961.

     Lobby Cards, The Classic Comedies by Kathryn Leigh Scott,
first printed 1988.


8-27-95
Last revised 12-29-03

Entire contents of this column Copyright © 1995, 2003 by Rodney Schroeter.