Spencer Bell

Phil and Lou inherit property left by an eccentric uncle with the provision they occupy the house for thirty days. They start for the place but encounter some rough roads and have to camp for the night. A bear wanders near their camp and Lou shoots and wounds a black man by mistake, and they make him part of their traveling party. But their cousin, Anita, wants the property for herself and, with several hired-henchmen, sends weird-form after weird-form through the house after the boys arrive. (imdb)

Avery DuPoise is a wealthy business man, organising a race. He meets one the competitors of the race, who is in love with DuPoises daughter. Another competitor crashes into the action, who is also in love DuPoises daughter. DuPoise suggests that who ever wins the race will have the opportunity to visit his daughter every Wednesday night. An action packed races commences, with one competitor doing more than usual to win the race. (imdb)

A slapstick comedy short with Lige Conley. (imdb)

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, 'counter jumper' was the term used in both Britain and the U.S.A. to describe the lowest dogsbody clerk in a general store or emporium. Here, Semon is employed in that capacity in an Old West general store that caters for desperate characters. As usual for Semon, most of the gag set-ups are deeply contrived and implausible. We get here not one but two separate sequences in which randomly splattered stains just happen to resemble a human face. (imdb)

The storm, which takes up most of the second reel, is a trial run for the storm sequence in The Wizard Of Oz which Semon would make in 1925. Fox released a comedy that was an exact copy of Lightning Love just before the Semon film was due to come out. Albert E. Smith noticed the similarities and on September 5, 1923 attempted to have the Fox film pulled from the exhibitors. (lordheath.com)

Larry arrives at his girlfriend's house to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Her father, who is in the middle of winning a chess game for the first time in 20 years, immediately throws Larry out the window. Meanwhile, the girl is kidnapped by a Chinese servant, who is secretly the henchman of a gangster who has developed a sleeping potion he wants to try out on an unsuspecting woman. Larry finds out, and he sets out to rescue his girlfriend and try not to get thrown out of a window... (imdb)

A boxer offers $50 to anyone who can stay in the ring with him for an entire minute. Larry, through a series of mix-ups--including hitting the boxer in the face with a tomato--winds up in the ring with him but, with the aid of some strategically placed horseshoes, manages to knock the boxer out. When he comes to and finds out what happened, the outraged boxer sets out after Larry. (imdb)

Here we have 'The Gown Shop', very much in Semon's usual style but with fewer laughs than usual. Semon plays his default character, a grotesque hard-working incompetent. (I'm going to be using the word 'grotesque' a lot in this particular review.) This time round, he blunders into a boutique. After causing some damage he can't pay for, Larry is put to work as a general dogsbody. Mayhem ensues. (imdb)

Young and beautiful Iva Method is spying for the police at the Dropem Inn, a sleazy club that the police suspect is a front for a bootlegging operation run by gangster Slim Chance. Chance discovers Iva's identity and kidnaps her, and the police chief sends his somewhat bumbling son to rescue her. (imdb)

The plot of this film really isn't that important. Instead, the sight gags and chase scenes are paramount--with some of the most impressive chase footage you'll ever see. All the near-misses with the speeding train were amazing and the scene where the car gets smashed by the truck are absolutely priceless. (imdb)

A clerk is given $10,000 to deposit at the bank, but the bank is closed for the night so he tries to get to the bank president's house with the money. (imdb)

Jack Cooper has a taxi inspector on his heels, and later confuses the inspector's wife for a theater automaton. Each section is highlighted by a major set piece of a gag and they are well done. (imdb)

Larry has to fight off a bunch of crooks who are after his bag of jewels. (imdb)

This Andy Clyde short, in which Andy plays second fiddle to a bad performance by the usually reliable Wade Boteler, finds Boteler (as Bert) courting the daughter of Andy Clyde and Addie McPhail, and Andy reminds him that he shouldn't take her for granted, especially at a gathering where Dr. Dudley Smith, accomplished musician, artist, sportsman, lecturer, world traveler, singer, dancer and worker of cross-word puzzles, is putting heavy moves on Helen, Bert's intended. (imdb)

Lige Conley stars in "Fast and Furious" (1924), a fast-paced silent comedy. Conley's sidekick in this film, as with several in this series of "Mermaid" comedies Conley made for Educational and Jack White, is African-American character actor Spencer Bell. The chase in reel two lifts a number of gags from Buster Keaton films.

Poodles Hanneford comedy produced and distributed by the Weiss Brothers.

A detective sets out to nab Notorious Nora, the tough female leader of a gang whose headquarters is in a dangerous speakeasy. He decides to infiltrate her gang in order to get the goods on her, but things don't turn out exactly the way he expected them to. (imdb)

Larry Semon comedy for Vitagraph.

Jack Duffy is terrified of horses, so when Gayle Lloyd wants to lift the mortgage by running her horse in the harness race that Saturday, he's chosen to drive the rig. The rest of the movie is about the farcical mishaps on the way to his inevitable victory..