A Submarine Pirate

A Submarine Pirate (1915)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A dimwitted waiter (Syd Chaplin) overhears a couple men talking about using a submarine to rob a ship carrying gold so he decides to buy an outfit and get on board the sub to try and do the thing himself. A SUBMARINE PIRATE really doesn't work too well as a comedy but I think film buffs are going to be entertained simply by how much this thing tries to do. This was Mack Sennett's first film for Triange Pictures so perhaps this explains why this seems to have a much bigger budget and more plot than the type of films he was turning out at Keystone. For 1915 this has a pretty detailed plot as we get all sorts of stuff going on but the most shocking thing is that this appeared to have been shot on a real sub. I thought some of these scenes were really brought to life by Chaplin including one where we see him running around on the front of the sub. We also get a few moments in the sub, which might not be funny but it's still interesting to see. Chaplin, as you'd expect, works best early on when he's playing the moron waiter and I think we get some funny jokes here including one bit where he pretty much has everything that belongs on the table in his pants and coat. At 24-minutes the film doesn't have enough laughs to make it a complete success but film buffs should enjoy it.

Just watched on the "American Slapstick" DVD collection this Mack Sennett comedy short starring Charlie Chaplin's brother Syd. In this one, he plays a waiter who overhears two men planning to rob a ship. Syd then steals their plans and, wearing a pirate captain's uniform, decides to execute them himself. From there, we go aboard a submarine where "his" men are waiting...I thought the restaurant/kitchen scenes were quite hilarious to me while the ones at sea not so much and I wasn't thrilled at Syd's sudden change to a villain. Still, overall, I liked A Submarine Pirate and would heartily recommend it to anyone who loves silent movies.

....and paid attention to the written and spoken commentary, then if you are not terribly familiar with the people involved, you may taken on board a few false ideas: 1: Syd introduced brother Charlie to Fred Karno and thus produced one of the greatest talents in the movies. Uh, not quite. In fact, Charlie had been a boy actor, quite possibly being in one of William Gillette's Sherlock Holmes productions in 1905 as 'Billy the Page.' 2: This is the first appearance of Syd in any home video of any Syd Chaplin movie. Well, there is a seven- or eight-tape set of Keystones that is still floating around in which three of Syd's 'Gussle' shorts appear.

But of course, errors like that are irrelevant to any movie. How good is this movie? It's a pretty good Keystone three-reeler of the period, chaotic to the modern eye, but very funny.

And how is Syd? Well, you can see he's Charlie's brother and also a graduate of the Karno company..... look for the occasional 'interrupted line of movement' gag that most people know as seeming to offer to shake hands, that turns into flattening one's hair.