Like many of you, I love Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, The Marx Brothers and The Three Stooges. However, there is always a joy that comes from watching the lesser-known comedy teams of Hollywood's past. One of my favorites of these comedy teams is Ham and Bud. Consisting of silent film comedians Lloyd Hamiliton and Bud Duncan, this duo made a series of very fun short comedies. These short comedies lasted from 1914 to 1917. While The Bathtub Bandit may not be one of their greatest shorts, it is a fun short and its plot is so bizarre, that it easily puts a smile on my face.
In this short film, a thief (Robert Bradbury) has a mania for stealing bathtubs. When he frames Ham and Bud for stealing a bathtub, our heroes end up on the run from the cops. This leads to our heroes being out to sea in a bathtub, which is only the start of their troubles.
There is a time and a place for sophisticated and subtle humor and A Bathtub Bandit is neither the time nor place. This is a slapstick comedy that is delightfully over the top and has a lot of fun with its very silly premise. As silly as the basic premise is, this short only gets sillier as it goes along. With some wonderfully over the top slapstick gags, this film keeps building upon each previous gag until it reaches a delightfully silly ending. While the humor may not be sophisticated, it is really darn funny. There is hardly a moment here where I did not have a smile on my face or even laugh out loud. Ham and Bud may not have much personality in this comedy, but the actors do a good job of delivering each slapstick gag. All of this results in a very entertaining little short comedy.
In a 1917 issue of Motion Picture News Peter Milne wrote a review of both this and another Ham and Bud comedy. Here is that review.
"Ham and Bud Kalem's comedy team are featured in both 'The Bathtub Bandit' and 'The Onion Magnate's Revenge.' Both are burlesques, the former being carried to an extreme that closely borders the foolish at a point rather remotely removed from comedy. The latter, however, has been handled somewhat more capably, while the line of trick work introduced assists largely in getting over and getting the laughs.
"'The Bathtub Bandit' describes in its title the character of burlesque. Everything in the burlesque lines, even to the newspaper item, telling of the number of bathtubs purloined in broad daylight under the very eyes of the police, has been introduced. Ham and Bud are employed to steal the tub and the numerous adventures which the theft leads them into compromise the greater part of the picture. The humor runs along a good many lines and the plot gets lost in the latter part of the reel. Some conventional comedy is employed by a drunk who is constantly drinking beer and getting in the way of the principals.
"'The Onion Magnate's Revenge' introduces Ham and Bud as purveyors of 'fresh' ice 'raised on their own farm.' While making their rounds they discover the great wealth of a millionaire lying in his cellar. The wealth is onions. These they steal and as a consequence become rich overnight. They eventually lose the loot but before doing so go through a number of weird experiences. Henry Murdock succeeds in getting a laugh in the one scene in which he appears in this number and all the cast are remarkably good at burlesque."
Kalem Kalendar, 1915
Moving Picture World, 1915
Director Alfred Santell directed quite a few of these Ham and Bud films. He directed a whole slew of silent comedies for not only Kalem (the studio that released the Ham and Bud films) but also Hal Roach and Mack Sennett. During the talkie era, he would have a good career directing quite a few feature length B movies and the occasional A movie. His talkie credits include The Arizona Kid (1930), The Sea Wolf (1930), Polly of the Circus (1932), Tess of the Storm Country (1932), Cocoanut Grove (1938), The Arkansas Traveler (1938), Aloma of the South Seas (1941), Beyond the Blue Horizon (1942), The Hairy Ape (1944) and Mexicana (1945).
For anyone interested you can watch this film on YouTube below.
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