The Star Boarder (1919)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I am a little puzzled as to why modern US commentators are always so down on poor Larry Semon. Semon was enormously popular outside the US (in France, in Germany and most of all in Italy) and continued to be so long after his sadly premature death. Many of his films are now only available in 1940s versions (gruesomely sonorised) and this particular film I have only seen in a German sonorised version which presumably dates from the same period. This despite the fact that Semon's was in fact a very Jewish style of comedy, an aspect if anything exaggerated by the clown-mask make-up.He was a pioneer in many respects, re-introducing non-realistic trick-effects into comedy (for which he rarely seems to be given the credit although the currently very fashionable Charley Bowers is hugely over-praised for the same thing a little later). He was also the pioneer of the dramatic action stunt, some years before Harold Lloyd entered the field and such stunts became commonplace in nearly all comedy films at the end of the twenties.He was also enormously generous to those who performed with him. Despite Laurel's later untruthful claims to the contrary, he gave ample space for both Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy to develop their talents. He also boosted enormously the career of black actor Spencer Bell, who, not only performs in innumerable Semon films but is not infrequently given his own comedy-routines in the course of them and in some is almost an equal partner with Larry himself.This film does not in the last resemble Chaplin's The Adventurer. The joke here concerns a convict trying to get back into prison, a theme I cannot recall having come across in any other comedy.Sadly few of his comedies survive in a condition that would allow one to judge him at his proper worth. Most have been cut about, bowdlerised, sonorised and mixed together, giving an utterly chaotic impression that does not do them justice.Perhaps one day Semon will find a champion prepared not only to admire his films but also to restore them, where possible, to their original condition.

Larry Semon took over the Vitagraph comedy division, changed it from a drawing room comedy sort of production unit to one emphasizing more Keystone slapstick and starred and directed some good comedies with good cinematography. But eventually, although his stuff remained popular, his budgets ballooned out of control, his gags became repetitive and instead of an ensemble of comedians, it became about Semon. Did he run out of ideas? Was he simply unable to adjust to a more sophisticated way of constructing a comedy with a real plot and characters that would make an audience pay? Or was he just annoyed that Chaplin and Lloyd could do these things and thought that bigger booms would substitute? In this short subject, we see Semon do a variation of Chaplin's THE ADVENTURER and while it is a decent enough comedy on its own terms, it doesn't begin to compare with the Chaplin effort. The gags are too cartoonish in their execution. It makes Semon, who doesn't give much of anyone screen time except for himself and Snooky the Humanzee, annoying. Also I can't accept a cast list which credits Norma Shearer as 'The Big V Beauty Squad' and ranks her after a Chimpanzee, even at the beginning of her career.