Misplaced Pages

#659340

24-524: By the spring of 1914, Henry "Pathé" Lehrman had directed several important Keystone Cops comedies including The Bangville Police (1913) and Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914), Charlie Chaplin 's debut. Wooed away from Mack Sennett by producer Fred J. Balshofer , Lehrman left Keystone, along with star performer Ford Sterling , to found Sterling Comedies under the umbrella of the Universal Film and Manufacturing Co., later Universal Pictures . After

48-633: A Keystone Cop. Mack Sennett continued to use the Keystone Cops intermittently through the 1920s, but their popularity had waned by the time that sound films arrived. In 1935, director Ralph Staub staged a revival of the Sennett gang for his Warner Brothers short subject Keystone Hotel , featuring a re-creation of the Kops clutching at their hats, leaping in the air in surprise, running energetically in any direction, and taking extreme pratfalls. The Staub version of

72-547: A prop man. Sennett also starred in a cameo appearance as himself). Richard Lester 's A Hard Day's Night (1964) has a scene where the reminiscent Keystone cops chase the Beatles around the streets. In Sydney, Australia, in the 1960s, Rod Hull , Desmond Tester and Penny Spence featured in a local homage series of TV comedy shorts, Caper Cops . "It’s a direct steal of the American Keystone Kops [sic], but this

96-570: A relatively short time, Lehrman was fired from Sterling Comedies and founded L-KO as a separate unit within Universal. L-KO's first comedy star was veteran English comic Billie Ritchie , who had played the role of the drunk in Fred Karno 's stage production A Night in the English Music Hall before Chaplin did. Ritchie made his film debut in the first L-KO production, Love and Surgery , which

120-475: A time. Henry Bergman had made one picture with Phillips Smalley before turning up at L-KO; not long after he would join Charlie Chaplin's regular troupe of character actors. Lehrman proved even more frugal with budget than Sennett had been, and he favored a rough-and-tumble style of slapstick that reputedly resulted in injury. Author Kalton C. Lahue reported that there were stunt persons and bit players of

144-561: Is Sydney, Australia, in the late 1960s and who cares..." said creator/star Hull. Mel Brooks directed a car chase scene in the Keystone Cops' style in his comedy film Silent Movie (1976). In the late 1960s, Warner Bros.-Seven Arts pitched to create a series of animated cartoon short films based on the Keystone Cops, before being scrapped permanently following the closure of Warner’s original animation studio in 1969. The name has since been used to criticize any group for its mistakes and lack of coordination, particularly if either trait

168-471: The Keystone Cops became a template for later re-creations. 20th Century Fox 's 1939 film Hollywood Cavalcade had Buster Keaton in a Keystone chase scene. Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (1955) included a lengthy chase scene, showcasing a group of stuntmen dressed as Sennett's squad. (Two original Keystone Cops in this film were Heinie Conklin as an elderly studio guard and Hank Mann as

192-487: The Keystone Kops. The 1983 video game Keystone Kapers , released for the Atari 2600 , 5200 , MSX and Colecovision , by Activision , featured Officer Keystone Kelly. The open-source 1987 video game NetHack features Keystone Kops as a type of enemy, appearing whenever a player steals from an in-game shop. Triangle Film Corporation Triangle Film Corporation (also known as Triangle Motion Picture Company )

216-502: The L-KO lot in August 1918 and directed a few subjects through to near the end of L-KO's existence. Dapper comic Raymond Griffith made his film debut at L-KO in 1915 and comedian Eva Novak did so in 1917. Even Fatty Voss managed to direct one two-reeler, Fatty's Feature Fillum , just before his untimely death in 1917. He, thus, spent his entire film career at L-KO. What finally brought around

240-519: The United Kingdom and Ireland . The rugby commentator Liam Toland uses the term to describe a team's incompetent performance on the pitch. The phrase "Keystone cops defending" has become a catchphrase for describing a situation in an English football match where a defensive error or a series of defensive errors leads to a goal. The term was also used in American Football commentary to describe

264-468: The edgiest and darkest entries in the annals of American Silent Comedy. Keystone Cops The Keystone Cops (often spelled " Keystone Kops ") are fictional, humorously incompetent policemen featured in silent film slapstick comedies produced by Mack Sennett for his Keystone Film Company between 1912 and 1917. Keystone Cops was the idea of Hank Mann , and they were named for the Keystone studio,

SECTION 10

#1733092842660

288-587: The end of 1916 and took over the Sunshine Comedies unit at Fox . After Lehrman's departure, L-KO was taken over by Julius and Abe Stern -- brothers-in-law to Universal's founder Carl Laemmle -- and they named John G. Blystone director-in-chief. Blystone headed L-KO for a few months but he ultimately went to Fox Sunshine as well. L-KO nonetheless kept going for quite some time and proved a valuable training ground for new or developing comedy talent. Director Charles Parrott, better known as Charley Chase , came onto

312-518: The end of L-KO was not Lehrman's departure, nor declining receipts for L-KO's product, but an outbreak of Spanish flu on the lot, which forced Universal to shut the whole studio down. L-KO's last release, An Oriental Romeo (1919) starring Chinese funnyman Chai Hong , was released on September 24, 1919, though the studio had already been closed for good in May. While L-KO never had a break-out star as prominent as Charlie Chaplin, in nearly every other way it

336-533: The film production company founded in 1912 by Sennett. Their first film was Hoffmeyer's Legacy (1912), with Mann playing the part of police chief Tehiezel, but their popularity stemmed from the 1913 short The Bangville Police starring Mabel Normand . As early as 1914, Sennett shifted the Keystone Cops from starring roles to background ensemble in support of comedians such as Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle . The Keystone Cops served as supporting players for Chaplin, Marie Dressler and Mabel Normand in

360-579: The first full-length Sennett comedy feature Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914); Mabel's New Hero (1913) with Normand and Arbuckle; Making a Living (1914) with Chaplin in his first pre- Tramp screen appearance; In the Clutches of the Gang (1914) with Normand, Arbuckle, and Al St. John ; and Wished on Mabel (1915) with Arbuckle and Normand, among others. Comic actors Chester Conklin , Jimmy Finlayson , and Ford Sterling were also Keystone Cops, as

384-563: The play of the New York Jets against the New England Patriots in the 2012 Butt Fumble game, with sportscaster Cris Collinsworth declaring "This is the Keystone Cops", after the Jets gave up 21 points in 51 seconds. According to Dave Filoni , supervising director of the animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars , the look of the police droid is based on the appearance of

408-406: The studio suffered from bloat. By 1917, producer Adolph Zukor had taken control of all of the studio's assets. In June 1917, Thomas H. Ince and Mack Sennett left the company and sold their remaining interests. In 1917, Triangle's distribution network of film exchanges were sold off to the W.W. Hodkinson company for $ 600,000 (equivalent to $ 14,000,000 in 2023). Goldwyn Pictures purchased

432-448: The time who would not answer a call from L-KO owing to the possibility of danger; stuntman Harvey Parry referred to him as '"Suicide" Lehrman.' Lehrman eventually brought on directors John G. Blystone , Harry Edwards and David Kirkland to help raise the total output of L-KO, but stingily refused to award directors credit for L-KO films. As the result of yet another dispute—this time with executives at Universal—Lehrman left L-KO towards

456-835: The wake of The Birth of a Nation 's unexpected success that year. Triangle was envisioned as a prestige studio based on the producing abilities of filmmakers D. W. Griffith , Thomas Ince and Mack Sennett . The studio planned to open eight model theaters, but opened only three: the Knickerbocker in New York, the Chestnut Street Opera House in Philadelphia and the Studebaker Theatre in Chicago. They opened in 1915 and were all closed as unviable in 1916. Eventually,

480-645: Was a major American motion-picture studio, founded in July 1915 in Culver City, California and terminated 7 years later in 1922. The studio was founded in July 1915 by Harry and Roy Aitken , two brothers from the Wisconsin farmlands who pioneered the studio system of Hollywood's Golden Age . Harry was also D. W. Griffith 's partner at Reliance-Majestic Studios ; both parted with the Mutual Film Corporation in

504-482: Was director Del Lord . The original Keystone Cops were George Jeske , Bobby Dunn , Mack Riley, Charles Avery , Slim Summerville , Edgar Kennedy , and Hank Mann . In 2010, the lost short A Thief Catcher was discovered at an antique sale in Michigan. It was filmed in 1914 and stars Ford Sterling , Mack Swain , Edgar Kennedy , and Al St. John and includes a previously unknown appearance of Charlie Chaplin as

SECTION 20

#1733092842660

528-501: Was exhibited after a great deal of energy and activity. For example, in criticizing the Department of Homeland Security 's response to Hurricane Katrina , Senator Joseph Lieberman claimed that emergency workers under DHS chief Michael Chertoff "ran around like Keystone Kops, uncertain about what they were supposed to do or uncertain how to do it." In sport, the term has come into common usage by television commentators, particularly in

552-605: Was released October 25, 1914. Also making their first films in this venture were Gertrude Selby , a comedian who became the main female foil in L-KO comedies, and Fatty Voss , L-KO's answer to Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle . Louise Orth, who had appeared in some Biograph comedies and would go on to appear in many L-KO's, was also aboard for the first release. Before long this group of performers was joined by Hank Mann and other disaffected talent from Mack Sennett's "fun factory," such as Alice Howell , Harry Gribbon and ultimately Mack Swain , whose "Ambrose" character continued at L-KO for

576-571: Was successful in competing with Keystone; moreover, as Mack Sennett broke with the Triangle Film Corporation in July, 1917, L-KO managed to outlast Keystone by a year. However, it remains an extremely obscure Silent Comedy brand. Although L-KO produced around 300 titles in its five-year existence; little more than 10 percent of these films are known to exist today. Given Lehrman's preference for violent sight gags and Ritchie's confrontational style of humor, surviving L-KO films stand as some of

#659340