Spuds (1927)

Dorothy Dwan and Larry Semon in SPUDS (1927)

52 Dorothy Dwan and Larry Semon


Larry Semon in
"Spuds"

Pathe          Length: 4930 ft.

SLOW AND THE LAUGHS FEW AND FAR BETWEEN. SEMON STRIVES VALIANTLY TO AMUSE BUT NEITHER HE NOR THE GAGS SUCCEED IN BEING FUNNY.

Cast... Semon needs better material than this to draw the laughs. Kewpie Morgan as a top sergeant the typical fat boy and Dorothy Dawn (sic) is the girl. Edward Hearne and other not important in the story.

Story and Production... Comedy. At least "Spuds" is intended to be comedy but the laughts are so conspicuously absent that it seem out of order to brand it as such. Larry Semon isn't enough of a comedian himself to put a picture over. He needs gags, good gags, and manyof them to make the grade. For his latest he has selected the popular war atmosphere with himself a boob private who gets mixed up in an enem camp and through no brilliance of his own is the means of retrieving the stolen pay car. The story plods along at a slow pace without hardly a semblance of a laugh until almost the finish when some spook business with colored soldiers become fairly amusing. A wild ride in a tank serves as a closing sequence.

Direction    Larry Semon; not so good.
Author        Not credited
Scenario    Not credited
Photography    H. F. Koenekamp, Jas. Brown, Jr., fair

-- The Film Daily, April 10, 1927, p.6


"Spuds"
Amusing Gags and Slapstick Enliven Farce Comedy of World War, Starring Larry Semon

John Adams Presents
"Spuds"
Starring Larry Semon

Directed by Larry Semon
A Pathe Picture

CAST:

"Spuds" Larry Semon
Madelon Dorothy Dwan
Captain Edward Hearn
Sergeant Kewpie Morgan
General Robert J. Graves
Bertha Hazel Howell
Spy Hugh Fay

        Length -- 4930 Feet

"Spuds," American private in the world war, harassed by his top sergeant eventually gets mixed up with spies, who have stolen an armored tank loaded with money, and captured by the Germans he succeeds in escaping with the tank and money. Amusing war comedy.

LARRY SEMON'S NEWEST production, "Spuds," written and directed by himself and which is being distributed by Pathe, is a farce comedy of the battle area during the World War, with the star in the role of a boob private, whose job is to peel potatoes for his company, hence his nickname.

Characteristic of this type of farce, there is only a bare thread of a story which concerns Larry's troubles with the familiar hard-boiled top sergeant, which leads him into an adventure with spies and eventually to the recapture of an armored car filled with money which has been stolen from the Americans.

Around this outline there has been built up a succession of gags, some new and some old, with spapstick galore, chases, etc., and the result is a comedy that should prove fairly amusing for the average audience. One of the most amusing sequences shows the antics of a lot of colored soldiers who mistake Larry for a ghost. There is some good stuff in the spy scenes and a clever bit shows larry drawing cartoons of Chaplin and the top sergeant and giving imitations of them by using his own fingers as thelegs of the cartoon figures.

This is a typical Semon comedy with the stars doing the same sort of things he usually does and the stunts and gags have been considerably drown out to make it a comedy of feature length.

-- Moving Picture World, April 9, 1927, p. 586


with Larry Semon and Dorothy Dwan. Directed by Larry Semon. Semon/Pathé.

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Public Domain Mark
This work (Spuds (1927), by Paramount), identified by Bruce Calvert, is free of known copyright restrictions.

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Last Modified March 28, 2022