Humbugs and Husbands (1918) watch online HD

Dunces and Dangers which appeared in August is often cited as an example of daredevil acrobatics that preceded Lloyd's Look Out Below but no one ever seems to mention this film which also contains some remarkable acrobatics. Larry is having trouble picking up girl in the park because they all prefer men in uniform, notably policemen. He tricks a policeman who is courting a nanny into diving into the lake (by sending the baby off for a walk and then dropping a stone into the water) and steals his uniform). Unfortunately this brings the whole police force in pursuit of him and the chase begins.

First of all he scales a gas tower (by ladder), then runs around the top of the tower before climbing back down, ten (with only two policemen still in pursuit) scales a house (by the fire escape), leaps from one roof to another, leaps from there to a tree and thence to the ground only to find another waiting policeman in the quarry below, scales another tower by the ladder, descending on a rope, then climbs a scaffold, ascends in a lift and descends swinging on a crane and cabling along a high-wire - all without ever managing to shake the persistent policemen who have gathered in force once more to await his descent, He eventually evades them by changing places with the janitor of a boarding-house end the rest of the film (rather an anti-climax) concerns his efforts to reconcile a warring couple (Bill Hauber and Blanche Payson) whose antics are disturbing the other boards, which he succeeds in doing (but not quite as intended). Hi luck seems to have changed with one of the women of the house but.....

The adrenalin builds up again at the end, with a final car chase.

The film is readily available in a Spanish version (Jaimito por meterse a redentor), one of the sonorised and commented versions that were somewhat bizarrely popular many years after Semon's death in both Fascist Italy and Fascist Spain neither of which evidently had problems with the antics of a very evidently Jewish comedian. It has no intertitles (but needs none) but it is good clean print and one can always turn off the sound.