Larry Semon
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Larry Semon (July 16, 1889 - October 8, 1928) was a film comedian during the silent era, at the time considered a "Comedy King", but now mainly remembered for working with both Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (of Laurel and Hardy) before they started working together. The somewhat mysterious circumstances surrounding his death have led some to believe that he faked his own demise. [1]
He is also sometimes noted for directing (as well as appearing in) Wizard of Oz, a 1925 silent film that had a slight influence on the more famous MGM talkie version (1939). The compliment was repaid in the 2005 3-disc DVD version of the 1939 film, on which the 1925 version also appears along with other silent "Oz" movies.
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[edit] History
Larry Semon usually played a white-faced goof in derby hat and overalls, who would enter any given setting (a bakery, a restaurant, a construction site, a prison camp, etc.) and cause chaos, with people being covered with debris, and property being destroyed. His short slapstick comedies were made and released quickly and prolifically, making Semon very familiar to moviegoers.
As his fame grew, the films expanded from one to two reels each, and Semon was given a free hand in making them. This became a dangerous policy, because Semon became notorious for being expensive and extravagant: his two-reel comedies could easily cost more than an average five-reel feature film. A former cartoonist, Semon staged similarly cartoony sight gags, using elaborate special effects.
No gag was too big for Semon. He loved chase sequences involving airplanes (sometimes using three in a film) exploding barns, falling water towers, auto wrecks and/or explosions, and liberal use of substances in which to douse people. A typical Semon comedy might involve barrels of flour, soot, ink, jam, mud pits, etc.
In The Bell Hop, a man sleeping under the spray of a malfunctioning fountain imagines he's swimming in the ocean, and in his sleep he dives off the bed, through the floor, and into a tremendous vat of paint standing in the lobby below. Oliver Hardy recalled in an interview that Semon, when staging his comedy short The Sawmill in a lumber camp, would not use traditional, painted stage sets. Instead, Semon insisted on building permanent log cabins, complete with modern conveniences. The production budget soared, and his bosses at Vitagraph Studios finally demanded that Semon become his own producer and underwrite his productions personally.
Semon tried to reverse his financial problems by entering the more lucrative field of feature films. He produced and starred in a few features in the mid-twenties, but by 1927 he was back in short subjects, released through Educational Pictures. He died in 1928, shortly after filing for bankruptcy.
[edit] Nicknames
French audiences knew him as Zigoto, Italian ones as Ridolini, and Spanish ones as Jaimito ("Jimmy") in pre-war releases and TomasÃn ("Tommy") in the 1940 re-releases by Manuel Rotellar[2].
[edit] Death
Larry Semon died at Gracelon Ranch, California of lobar pneumonia by pulmonary tuberculosis.
[edit] Filmography
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[edit] References
- ^ For a discussion of Semon's death, see: Claudia Sassen's 1999 article 'Larry Semon - How Many Times Did He Die?' Published in Slapstick! magazine #2, July 2000.
- ^ Claudia Sassen quotes Juan Gabriel Tharrats.
[edit] External links
- Larry Semon at the Internet Movie Database
- A three part article discussing Semon's career: [1], [2], [3].
