The Dilemma of the Comedy Plot

Lloyd Hamilton, who did not put an emphasis on plot in his short comedies, had trouble when he got into feature films and had to develop a plot that would sustain him through the longer running time without detracting significantly from the gags his writers had developed.

Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd set the standards by which feature comedies were judged. These comedymakers also struggled with balancing gags with plotlines and character development. I wrote at length about this subject in my Hamilton biography. Recently, I found some additional material on the subject, which I would like to include here. These are statements that Keaton made during a number of interviews he gave between 1920 and 1923.

Keaton resisted placing too much importance on plot. He talked about coming up with no more than a "little story." His rule, in simple terms, was that he should be able to "write the whole plot on a post card." It was Keaton's belief that, to create a comedy, he needed to get a plot first, then build gags around the plot, and then leave the plot out altogether.

Keaton provided the aforementioned remarks while he was still making short comedies, but he did not alter his position much after he got into feature films. He still didn't want to rely too heavily on plot. He insisted to a reporter that his second feature, Our Hospitality (1923), would have "No plot. . . Just gags." "But we'll space our laughs," he said. "If we ran five reels of the sort of stuff we cram into two, the audience would be tired before it was half over. So we'll plant the characters more slowly, use introductory bits, and all that." Unfortunately, that is a job easier said than done.

I have had my own struggle with plot. A great deal of enjoyment comes from people telling each other stories every day. These stories, which are based on people's experiences, do not necessarily have a beginning-middle-end structure or provide a last-act conflict resolution. They do not necessarily have villains or lessons. I was excited when the editor of a major publishing house agreed to read a novel that I had recently completed. The editor later told me that the book had a lot of "fun stuff" but, for his tastes, it didn't have a strong enough plot to bring all the elements of the book together. A lot of fun stuff? I assume that this means he laughed at a number of my jokes. Laughter is good. I have heard it said that laughter is its own reward.

I believe that a novel or film can be driven by themes and characters and does not need the structure of a plot to hold it together. Owen Glieberman, Entertainment Weekly critic, wrote about the absence of plot in the film Two Lovers. Glieberman liked the film's "rambling unpredictabity of form." He wrote, "You have to watch it with different brain muscles than you're used to using, because the film has no. . . hooks. . . [or] visible 'arcs,' nothing to grab on to but the fragile humanity of the people on screen."

A film should be about the filmmakers sharing their observations about human nature. Humanity, when all is said and done, has no plot.

Wait, it might sound pretentious to end this blog entry that way. Okay, I got a different closing. Ready? We don't need no stinkin' plots.

Tramp to Tramp

I am struck by similarities between the Keystone comedy His Musical Career and the "Ham" comedy Ham the Piano Mover, which came out less than a week apart in 1914. His Musical Career features Charlie Chaplin and Mack Swain as disportionately sized piano movers. Swain, the much larger mover, has Chaplin lift a piano on his back and carry it into a home on his own. In the closing scene, Chaplin and Swain roll down a hill with a piano and go crashing into a lake. The piano is sinking into the water as Chaplin merrily pounds the keys and launches into song.

Ham the Piano Mover had the same premise and at least one identical gag - Ham had his small partner Bud lift a heavy piano on his back and carry it into a home on his own. These similarities were likely a coincidence, but it is less a coincidence that other "Ham" comedies came to resemble Chaplin comedies. The Hobo Raid (1917), in particular, seemed to have taken its plot directly from Chaplin's The Tramp (1915). Dough and Dynamite (1914) is very much like the 1917 Ham and Bud misadventure The Deadly Doughnut. As original as Hamilton was, he occasionally was influenced by Chaplin.

Chaplin's Little Tramp preceded Hamilton's Big Tramp, but he was not the only tramp around in the days of early film comedy. The Little Tramp came along at a time that the movies were filled with funny tramps - tall tramps, fat tramps, short tramps, skinny tramps. It is possible that this trend was partly influenced by author W. H. Davies. Davies' 1910 bestselling memoirs The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp depicts tramps as charming, colorful and funny characters and describes the tramps getting involved in comical misadventures.

Davies relates a story about a tramp named Slim who is going from home to home to beg for money. He encounters a man standing outside of a shed. Davies writes, "Now, as Slim looked across, he saw into the shed, and behold there was a punching bail hanging from the ceiling, which was still moving as though this gentleman had only that moment finished practising." The man gives Slim a pair of boxing gloves and tells him that he will pay him a dollar if he spars with him for ten minutes. Slim avoids hitting the man for fear that he will knock him out and be unable to collect his dollar. The man is much less cautious and attacks Slim "like a mad bull." The man takes every opening that he gets to slam his fists into Slim, who ends up with "a bloody nose and such aching bones." This story, in terms of the characters, the humor and the violence, resembles one of the slapstick-style tramp comedies of early Hollywood.

The Tati Influence

I previously discussed Peter Sellers having been influenced by Jacques Tati. Here is a photo of Tati in his trademark tan trenchcoat and beaten hat looking like Seller's Inspector Clouseau.

Poor Soul

Here is a picture of Jackie Gleason's "Poor Soul" character, which had been strongly influenced by Lloyd Hamilton.

Lloyd Hamilton Gets His Start

These stills show Lloyd Hamilton in his early roles at the Kalem Company in 1914. Hamilton is partly hidden in the background of the first still. He is the man in the derby at the far right. The film is Sherlock Bonehead.

The still at right is from A Peach at the Beach. Hamilton, who is still experimenting with his make-up and costuming, is wearing a derby, a mustache and a putty nose. Hamilton, in fact, is wearing a putty nose in all of these stills. Bud, who played Hamilton's son in this comedy, is seen here clinging to his mother for protection.

Hamilton is campaigning against Marshall Neilan in a town election in A Substitute for Pants.


Hamilton is a Union general in The Deadly Battle at Hicksville.

Hamilton flirts with a secretary rather than mop the office floor in Lizzie the Lifesaver.

Amerikanische Marine-Groteske

A print of Lloyd Hamilton's Jolly Tars (1926) was recently discovered by a German museum, Deutsche Kinemathek. This print was distributed to German theaters under the title Amerikanische Marine-Groteske.

The Optimist

An advantage of this blog is that it has given me the opportunity to present photos of Lloyd Hamilton that did not make it into my book. Here is an ad for The Optimist (1923).