Spotlight: Mabel Normand
Normand was already directing at Keystone when Chaplin arrived. She threw pies, took falls, and carried features. Mickey sat on a shelf for more than a year and then made the money that proved she could hold six reels. The Extra Girl is the last Sennett feature: a lion on a leash she did not ask about. The scandals were not the work. William Desmond Taylor's murder attached her name to a crime she did not commit; tuberculosis finished the career. What is here is the Keystone year with Chaplin and Arbuckle, then the two features that show what the shorts were pointing at.
10 films
A Film Johnnie
1914 · George Nichols
Two months after Chaplin arrived, and Normand plays a Keystone star, which is what she was. He sneaks onto the set and wrecks the shot. She is at home in the machinery. Watch her not react to him. That is seniority.
Mabel at the Wheel
1914 · Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand
She directed it, and Chaplin did not want to take direction from her. The plot answers him: he kidnaps her driver, she puts on the racing clothes and finishes the course, with the 1914 Vanderbilt Cup for footage. Sennett kept the picture going. She kept the wheel.
Caught in a Cabaret
1914 · Mabel Normand
A waiter passing as a diplomat to get into her garden party. They share the slapstick; she stays readable while he mugs. Normand was twenty and more experienced than the man who would get the credit. Watch her hold a reaction. It costs less and lands harder.
Mabel's Strange Predicament
1914 · Mabel Normand
A hotel guest in pajamas, a drunk in the lobby in a baggy suit, and the argument about which film the costume appeared in first. Shot before Kid Auto Races, released two days after. Watch the chase through the rooms and count her falls. Nobody doubled them.
The Fatal Mallet
1914 · Mack Sennett
Three men, one girl, a park, and a mallet that keeps changing hands. Sennett put himself in the shot. Chaplin plays dirty. Normand absorbs the hits and gives them back, which is the Keystone contract. One reel about who gets to hit whom, and she is not the one standing aside.
Tillie's Punctured Romance
1914 · Mack Sennett
The first American feature comedy, six reels, and Dressler has the billing. Chaplin is the villain in a bowler. Normand is the other woman and the one who keeps the thing readable when it sprawls. Watch her in the restaurant scenes. Six reels was a bet, and she is a lot of why it paid.
Mabel and Fatty's Wash Day
1915 · Roscoe Arbuckle
Two marriages, a fence, laundry that will not stay put. The Arbuckle rhythm, which is her speed against his weight, with nobody trying to win. Watch them work the clothesline. This is the partnership with no competition in it, which is why it plays warmer than the Chaplin reels.
Fatty and Mabel at the San Diego Exposition
1915 · Roscoe Arbuckle
Send two stars and a camera to a fair and invent the movie on the ground. Electriquette cars, a hula pavilion, a fountain with cops in it. Half slapstick, half actuality. Watch the crowd looking at her. They are not extras.
Mickey
1918 · F. Richard Jones, James Young
Shelved for more than a year, then the money that proved she could hold six reels. An orphan from a mining camp sent east to an aunt who does not want her. Tomboy, debutante, rider, weeper, in one picture. Watch the race. The scandal came after this, and this is what it cost.
The Extra Girl
1923 · F. Richard Jones
The last Sennett feature. Sue Graham wins a contest with the wrong photograph and walks a lion through the lot, thinking it is the studio dog in a costume. The lion was Numa, and the trainer said she took the rope without asking. Watch the screen test. Sennett is in it, playing himself.