Director: Edwin S. Porter Starring: Bertha Regustus Length: 8:26 minutes |
Today I’m looking at another film by Edwin S. Porter, this
one called “Laughing Gas” and HOLY SHIT it actually stars a real life black
person! That was pretty damn impressive
for its day, especially considering some of the movies I’ll be watching in the
next couple weeks. Sure, there had been
previous films starring black actors (ahem ahem...), but for a movie in 1907 to feature a black actress in an, uhh...
normal... role must have made a few monocles hit the floor.
Unfortunately that’s about the only impressive thing about
this movie. The plot of “Laughing Gas”
is so simple as to be almost nonexistent, and now that I’ve moved out of the “Oh
my god did that photo just move?!”
era I no longer feel bad saying that. The
film opens with the protagonist visiting the dentist’s office on account of a
toothache. The dentists put her under and
pull the tooth, but they give her too much nitrous, because she spends the rest
of the day stumbling around laughing like an idiot. And everywhere she goes, her laughter proves
contagious. And boy did somebody think that was hilarious...
First it’s the subway, where she makes the passengers enter
fits of laughter. Then she bumps into
the milkman, making him laugh so hard that he drop his bottles of milk. The bobbies show up and they start laughing
too. Then the lady and the milkman are
brought before a judge, who starts laughing.
Then... you get the idea.
I had originally wanted to watch Georges Méliès’ “20,000 Leagues Under
the Sea” for today, but I couldn’t find the full version on Youtube. That’s very disappointing, because a movie by
the famous filmagician of France would have certainly been preferable to this. “Laughing Gas” beats its one
and only joke to death longer than Seth MacFarlane performing to a laugh track
on loop. Oh well. Next week I start getting into the
feature-length pictures, which hopefully have a bit more thought put into them.
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