the sweedie comedies: 29 short silent films
by Douglas Messerli
The
various episodes—18 released in 1914, 10 in 1915, and 1 in 1916—despite their
rather course humor and their often slapstick comic antics, were extremely
popular with audiences of the day.
The
first mention of the series I encountered was early in the pages of Vito
Russo’s The Celluloid Closet in passing connection with the drag works
of Fatty Arbuckle and Harold Lloyd in relationship to later works such as Some
Like It Hot and La Cage aux Folles. His book also contains a photo
of Beery performing in one of the series. Whether or not Russo actually saw any
of the Sweedie works is questionable. I was able to find and see only two of
the films, Sweedie Learns to Swim and Sweedie the Laundress, the
latter of which unfortunately is mistitled Sweedie Learns to Swim on the
internet, although they are very different stories.
Fortunately, The IMDb site briefly describes—in often almost
incomprehensible language taken it appears from the Essanay Film Company
catalogue—the basic plot or set-up. I have briefly attempted to translate these
descriptions for each film into everyday English, but of course I can attest
only to the reliability of my recounting of Sweedie the swimmer and the
laundress, and if these serve as evidence for the whole, the plots are far more
determined by incident and perhaps even Beery’s and Turpin’s improvisation than
being loyal on written scripts.
Nonetheless, these descriptions will give the reader a strong sense of
the silliness and even absurdity of these drag performances. The very fact that
Beery, unlike Fatty Arbuckle, did not at all look convincing as a woman only
added to the audiences’ delight. We might even think of these various short
films as serving a function similar in our own time to a TV comedy series, with
skits perhaps with someone like Milton Berle.
The element in them all that seems to be a constant is that the odd and
quite plain-looking Swedish miss repeatedly falls in love only to have her
romantic hopes and desires dashed by males who haven’t yet recognized her
charms and the natural gifts she offers. If Sweedie is a hopeless romantic and
even a dreamer, the new world in which she discovers herself does not seem to
offer much in the way of the American Dream, even if, at moments, she discovers
herself temporarily courted by sultans or inheriting wealth. Sweedie will
always remain a janitor or a char woman at heart.
*
Sweedie the Swatter / 1914 || lost film or
unavailable
Mrs. Highstrung certainly feels up to her name
on the occasion of having just lost her maid at the very moment that she
receives a telegram from dear friends who announce that they will arrive in
town just in time for lunch.
Her
hired man, Jim, however, tells her that he knows of a good Swedish cook, who
Mrs. Highstruck sends Jim immediately to fetch. Unfortunately, the new maid
cannot cook and the meal she attempts ends in disaster, leading to her
mistress’ anger, as she prepares to fire her. Apparently the comedy consists of
the numerous ways in which the new cook, obviously Sweedie (Wallace Beery),
successfully attempts to evade both her mistress and the guests.
*
Sweedie
and the Lord / 1914 || lost
film or unavailable
Lord Bunkum has just sent a letter to Mr. and
Mrs. Skidoo (Charlotte Mineau) that he is coming for a visit. But the Skidoos
apparently have had unpleasant dealings with Bunkum in the past and determine
they will not be home when he arrives, asking Sweedie (Beery) to simply inform
his Lordship that they have been called away on business.
By
accident a tramp finds the Lord’s letter, which Mr. Skidoo has dropped upon
their skedaddle. With the hope of a good meal and a warm bed, the tramp decides
to impersonate the Lord. Sweedie, meanwhile, has decided to dress up as Mrs.
Skiddo. The two meet up in what is described as a hilarious dinner party which
the returning Skiddos evidently interrupt, putting both the bogus lord and poor
Sweedie into duck soup.
*
Topsy-Turvy Sweedie / 1914 || lost
film or unavailable
*
Sweedie and the Double Exposure / 1914 ||
lost film or unavailable
The son of the house has been given a camera,
and in his eagerness to experiment with it, he snaps a picture of the family
cook, Sweedie as she sits on a bench in the back yard. Later he takes a picture
of his father on the same bench, but forgets that it is necessary to turn the
handle to move the frame forward, and, accordingly, his picture results in a
double exposure, showing what seems to be Sweedie sitting on his father’s lap.
The naughty brat runs to show the picture to his mother.
Upset by what she witnesses with her own eyes, she scolds her husband
severely, while he can simply not explain the phenomenon, certainly having no
memory of the cook sitting on lap, his lack of memory resulting in another row.
The
rascal can’t contain himself for having created such a strange picture and
shows it the ice man and milkman as well, both of whom have been fighting for
Sweedie’s hand. Together they seek out their apparent rival, flooring him in
revenge.
*
Sweedie Springs a Surprise / 1914 ||
lost film or
unavailable
Sweedie is now working as the cook for the
Prim household; her master, who is three feet shorter than Sweedie, finds her
rather ungainly and course, determining to discharge her. But he finds it
difficult, especially when she handles him like a rag doll. Consulting a
friend, Mr. Prim is told that the couple are leaving the country that evening
so their maid will be available.
The
maid, quite a bit shorter than Prim and very delicate, delights him. He hires a
taxi to take her home, awarding her a bouquet of flowers and a box of candy.
But to his dismay, as he enters the house Sweedie greets the new girl with open
arms, describing her as a “bane sister,” in fact her real long-lost sister.
Together they walk out arm-in-arm, leaving Mrs. Prim to do the cooking.
*
Sweedie’s Skate / 1914 || lost film or
unavailable
Wearing her employer’s jewels without
permission, Sweedie decides to visit a skating rink, where suddenly finds
herself the most popular roller skater on the floor. Having never before
skated, she finds it difficult to keep standing, but her fellow skaters are all
seemingly ready to lend her an arm, and two of her admirers get into a brawl
about who gets to skate with the bejeweled lady.
The
police are called, but when they arrive Sweedie observes they are led by her
employer, who, frantic over her lost baubles, demands Sweedie’s immediate
arrest. The husky girl, however, determines to not be taken and rushes forward,
finally knocking to the floor nearly everyone in the rink.
*
Sweedie’s Clean-Up / 1914 || lost film or
unavailable
In this episode Sweedie’s father is a grocer
(Robert Bolder) who each day makes Sweedie take care of the customers while he
and a friend play checkers. Sweedie meanwhile is in love with a policeman, and
at every possible moment sneaks off to hold hands with him and whisper of their
love for one another.
One
day when the father and his friend are deeply involved in a checker game, and
Sweedie has momentarily escaped, two burglars (Leo White and Frank Hamilton)
enter the store and remove every last item, including the chairs on which the
checker players are seated. Sweedie, seeing what has occurred attempts,
unsuccessfully rouses the attention of the two players, while the burglars bind
her and stick her in the wagon which they have filled with the stolen foodstuffs.
Eventually the police find her still bound up, and everyone gives chase, her
boyfriend in the lead finally capturing the thieves.
*
Golf Champion ‘Chick’ Evans Links with Sweedie / 1914 || lost
film or unavailable
Suddenly her employers are very interested in her well-being, as they
help her to dress properly in fine clothes, and insist, as a society woman that
she now needs to learn how to play golf, taking her off to their golf club.
There she meets “Chick” Evans who determines he will attempt to teach her the
game.
With Sweedie intent upon swinging the club as if it were a baseball bat,
he has little success. And she finally hits the ball with such a terrible
wallop that it ruins the game for almost all those on the course. A call is
sent into the police for her disturbance, at the very moment that the delighted
Sweedie orders up the delivery of her fortune to the club itself. The fortune
arrives, whereupon Sweedie discovers that the “fortune” consists only of cigar
coupons.
When the police arrive, given Sweedie’s disappointment, as the saying
goes, “all hell breaks loose.”
*
The Fickleness of Sweedie / 1914 || lost film or
unavailable
In this short, two rivals seek Sweedie’s love,
Henry Bigger, a short fat man, and Danny Slimson, a short slim boy. By
“accident” Danny, peeking through Sweedie’s window, observes her reading a
letter from a man, assuming it is from Henry. In fact, it is a letter from
Sweedie’s landlord demanding payment of her rent. Sweedie rushes out to find
Henry, while Danny sneaks into her room to further explore the situation.
Upon the return of Sweedie with Henry in tow, Danny hides in a hole in
her mattress, which incomprehensibly Sweedie suddenly determines she now needs
to sew up. When the mattress begins to move of its own volition, Sweedie and
Henry become horror-stricken and call the police, who soon find themselves on
the chase as the mattress runs off.
Finally captured, the mattress is brought into the police station, and
when opened, Danny falls out into the arms of the forgiving Sweedie.
*
Sweedie Learns to Swim / 1914
In this episode, still available to viewers,
Sweedie works as a cook for another well-to-do family again named the Riches
(Leo White and Betty Brown) who live near a lake beach. One day, looking out of
her kitchen window, Sweedie is lured by the waters and determines to discover
its wonders. Dressing up in her finery, she heads for the beach only to be
waylaid by other young girls like herself, who mock her, and run off to the
beach without her.
Not to be deterred, as Sweedie never is, she soon joins them as they sit on the sand, a book by their side on “How to Swim.” But the moment they spot her, they again run off, she picking up the book to read it.
Before long she has met the chief of the Beach Life Savers (Ben Turpin) who also encourages her to learn how to swim, instructing her on some basic strokes. But suddenly she recalls her duty to finish the meal for her employers and their guests and rushes back home just in time to serve up, somewhat distractedly, their dinner.
On this day, the Riches have friends over once again for a card party, and Sweedie is able to sneak back in and run upstairs to change without their even noticing. But once in the bathroom, swimming book in hand, she begins to read once more how to learn how to swim on dry land. Filling the bathtub, she begins to act out some of the suggested strokes, in the process splashing vast amounts of the water onto the floor. Soon the floor is filled with water several inches deep, and she begins to practice some of the dives: the Australian Splash, the Chinese Side-Swiper, etc.
As
one might expect, the water begins to drip from the floor onto the downstairs
table upon which the Riches and their friends have posted their cards, and just
as suddenly a huge chunk of plaster falls upon them, water pouring in massive
amounts down upon them. Even as they attempt to rush upstairs, they find it
difficult to forge the waterfalls the staircase has become.
She rushes out, the Beach Police on the chase, she somehow slithering
through a drainpipe that leads to a small chute into the ocean. Having made it
through to the other side, Sweedie awaits, club in hand, the arrival of each of
her pursuers, one by one clubbing them over the head before delivering their
bodies into the cold lake waters.
Clambering up the incline from whence they were dropped, they go on the
chase once again, this time winding up on the beach where they finally corner
Sweedie and club her into submission.
Locked up in a jail cell, the cocky cook takes the water from her
washbasin, wets down the cell bench, and moves into a stomach position to
practice more of her swimming strokes.
*
She Landed a Big One (aka She
Landed a Lord) / 1914 || lost film or unavailable
One day, tired of their fruitless
relationship, Sweedie tells her beau (Harry Dunkinson) that it’s finished,
she’s through with him. So disconcerted with the news is he, that he determines
to end it all by taking a leap into the lake.
Fortunately, a stranger (Leo White) prevents him from completing the
act. And the do-gooder attempts to save yet another life when he attempts to
help Sweedie at the very moment she has a big fish on her line which
momentarily pulls her into the waters and drags her across the lake. He calls
the police who in a motorboat chase after Sweedie and her fish, finally
assisting her and helping her reel in her magnificent catch. But at that very
moment, the hook breaks, allowing the fish to get away. Furious with their
lifesaving attempts, Sweedie dumps them all, the Chief of Police (Ben Turpin),
the stranger, and another fisherman, into the waters and moves forward, reel in
hand, to again try her luck.
*
Sweedie the Laundress / 1914
So
excited is the tailor that he immediately calls in his errand boy (Ben Turpin)
ordering him to procure two meals and wine for the evening’s festivities. At
that very moment, however, Sweedie shows up with a note from the tailor
promising to marry her within the span of 6 months. Those months having now
passed, she demands he live up to his promise.
Sweedie writes a note to the tailor that having learned of his unwillingness to immediately marry her, she has drowned herself in a vat of dye. The two plotters quickly dress up a dummy and plunge her head down in a deep bucket in the back room, making it took that, indeed, Sweedie has carried through with her threat.
Upon
discovering the letter and checking out the back room where he spots what
appears to be the dead girl laying headfirst in a bucket, the tailor wails and
weeps in distress, his conscience troubling him so badly that he behaves almost
irrationally. But then, the food is about to arrive, and Bessie is so very
lovely....
To
prick his conscience once again, Sweedie shows up this time in a male “drag”
pretending to be Sweedie’s brother who has come to pick up Sweedie’s laundry.
Once more the tailor, stricken with regret, wails and weeps as he declares that
if she were only alive he would marry her in a moment.
Bessie is about to arrive, and the poor suffering tailor is confused
about what to do. Once more retreating to his office, he too dons a disguise,
returning to greet Bessie who, seeing the handsome young brother of the
laundress, is attracted to him. Seeing that the tailor is no longer around,
they sit down together to enjoy the supper, ordering the tailor in disguise to
serve the wine, as they engage in a pleasant conversation.
By
this time the disguised tailor, having lost both women it appears, is in s
frenzy. Bessie rejoins the hairdresser as the brother pulls off his disguise,
revealing a living Sweedie, the tailor falling almost into a faint at the
apparition. Enter the errand boy, who recognizing the tailor in his disguise,
pulls off his employer’s fake mustache revealing his identity as well. All
parties engage in a mad free-for-all until Bessie returns to the side of the
hairdresser and the tailor falls into Sweedie’s ready embrace.
From the Essany catalogue description, it appears the script declared
the end of the film much earlier, before the tailor disguised himself.
Obviously the absurd last scenes must have been a last minute decision or
improvised on the spot.
*
Sweedie the Trouble Maker / 1914 || lost film or
unavailable
Sweedie cannot choose between her two admirers
which one she would like to marry. Her parents most definitely prefer Fritz,
the fat little German (Robert Bolder), which makes it clear to Sweedie that she
should marry Leo (Leo White).
The
very next day Leo shows up in disguise, dressed as a debonair actor. Sweedie’s
parents absolutely love him, suddenly declaring that he is the most suitable
man they have yet met for their daughter’s hand. A justice of the peace (Ben
Turpin) is quickly summoned, and the ceremony is performed. Too late, the
father discovers that he has been deceived and sends for the police. Naturally
when the police arrive Sweedie proves a veteran battler in the free-for-all
that follows.
*
Countess Sweedie / 1914 || lost film or unavailable
Countess Von Swatt goes slumming, visiting a
“hash house” where Sweedie works. While there, she accidentally loses one of
her calling cards, which Sweedie discovers. Strangely enough, the very next day
an invitation to Mr. Wealth’s grand ball is mistakenly delivered to Sweedie.
How can she resist? Sweedie determines to attend the ball as the Countess.
With a waiter friend from her restaurant (Ben Turpin), Sweedie arrives
at the ball, introduced to the waiting guests as the Countess Von Swatt, based
on the card she has presented. But in the midst of the announcement, Sweedie
stubs her toe on the staircase and falls down the stairs landing on her bottom.
This appears to actually lighten up the affair, and nearly all of the
guests suddenly pay close attention to her as she attempts to demonstrate the
latest dances. In the midst of her and the waiter’s rendition of the “Sweedish
tango,” the real countess arrives, and, as the couple rush for the door, they
are captured, forced to spend the night in jail. At least, Sweedie ponders, she
has been a Countess for a short while in her increasingly memorable life.
*
Sweedie at the Fair / 1914 || lost film or
unavailable
This episode is one of the strangest yet. A
cook, once again in the Rich household, Sweedie has apparently purchased a
donkey from the chief of police, but forgets to pay for it. Angry about the
nonpayment, the chief has the house raided in order to get his money. Sweedie
is understandably fired from her job.
Now short money and without a job, Sweedie takes her donkey to the
county fair, hoping to win a few cash prizes. When the donkey fails to win any
ribbons, Sweedie removes a ribbon from one of the prize horses, but
unfortunately is caught in the act. With the police now hot on her “tail,” she
ties her pet in a racing car and speeds along the track with the police in
pursuit. Driving her auto into a tent, a terrible explosion occurs, wrecking
the machine.
*
A Maid of War / 1914 || lost film or unavailable
As Sweedie studies a war map (one must
remember that the Sweedie films appeared at the very start of World War I) in a
bar which she tends, two bums enter and proceed to order up wine and begin to
drink it; but when she demands payment they dash out without paying. As
everyone seems to do in these Sweedie movies, she calls the police who go on
hot pursuit of the deadbeats, Sweedie following along.
By
this time, however, the police are so far ahead of her, she’s not certain which
building they entered in the chase, and believing it to be the door where she
has just reached, she rushes in, causing a huge commotion, finally realizing
that she has just interrupted a wedding in progress. The guests jump her and a
massive melee takes place, Sweedie being saved only by the intervention of the
bridegroom.
Having completely broken up the wedding, Sweedie abashedly leaves,
strangely enough, accompanied by the bridegroom. Together they return to the
bar, where they discover the two bums have reentered, opening up all the
faucets to the wine barrels. Finding them hiding in a corner, she drags them
out, waging a royal battle as they all roll about in wine up to their knees.
*
Sweedie and the Hypnotist / 1914 || lost film or
unavailable
Sweedie now works as a scrub lady in a
theater. But for being so impertinent as to flirt with the stage manager and
the hypnotist who performs there (Ben Turpin and Harry Dunkinson), she is let
go. The following day while feeding her chickens, she falls asleep to dream
that she has been left a fortune by her uncle and is now being courted by both
the manager and the hypnotist.
So
entranced by her is the hypnotist that he casts a trance on the manager to keep
him apart from his true love. But there comes a moment when the manager, seeing
his opportunity, shoves the hypnotist in a trunk and locks it up. But through a
few simple motions, the hypnotist manages an escape, lying in wait for the
manager to return. In the meantime, he and Sweedie share caresses until she
awakens to find a goat on her lap.
*
Sweedie Collects for Charity / 1914 ||
lost film or unavailable
A cook once more, Sweedie now works for Mrs.
Goodheart, a charity worker who returns home one evening to describe her
discouragement of having been unable to get even the smallest of donations from
the millionaire Mr. Tightwad. The always positive-thinking Swedish girl decides
that she will try her luck with the old man herself.
Visiting his office, she is denied admittance. In response she almost
breaks down his door, but when she finally is offered admittance he outright
refuses to give her a cent. Sweedie rolls up her sleeves and his ready to give
him a good licking until, perceiving that she means business, he agrees to
whatever amount she demands.
Soon after, laden down with groceries they have purchased with the
unexpected funds, Sweedie and Mrs. Goodheart visit a poor family to deliver up
their goods.
But suddenly Mr. Tightwad shows up with a policeman, apparently to claim
that the money that was “stolen” from him. Sweedie gives him a good hard look,
and he shrinks back, offering her even more money than before. Mrs. Goodheart
and the family are amazed by their luck, and even Sweedie marvels at her
success.
*
Sweedie and the Sultan’s Present /
1915 || lost
film or unavailable
While reading in the kitchen, Sweedie falls
asleep. She dreams that the Sultan of Puff Puff, Kao Yama (Ben Turpin) has sent
her a present, a servant. But, she explains to his messengers, her husband
would certainly object to having a slave around the house. The messengers warn
her that those who refuse the Sultan’s gifts are put to death.
Sweedie, determined that she is to refuse the present, prepares for the
worst, but at that moment, Swipes, her husband enters demanding to know who are
these strange men in her kitchen. She attempts to explain to him that they come
from the Sultan, which even further outrages him, and demands their ejection.
Fearing for her life, she takes up a butcher knife, preparing to the kill the
messenger, but suddenly wakes up to find her husband on his knees, begging for
her mercy.
*
Sweedie’s Suicide / 1915 || lost
film or unavailable
Jilted yet again by her sweetheart, this time
another captain of the police department, Sweedie finally decides to kill
herself. She writes a note and calmly prepares for the end. But at that very
moment “tricksters” (Robert Bolder, Leo White, and Charlotte Mineau) arrive and
inject “dope” into her system, putting her asleep. They erect a tombstone
beside her. ....This is what the Essany catalogue entry says as reported by
IMDb.
Upon awakening, Sweedie doesn’t know whether she’s alive or a ghost. She
returns home, only to discover that she cannot make herself seen or heard. Her
family is so overcome with grief, she is convinced that she must be a ghost.
Her note is duly delivered to the police captain, and he attends to the
grave followed by his force. Determined to discover whether she is truly dead
or alive, she “sails in” and almost annihilates the entire department.
*
Sweedie and Her Dog / 1915 ||
lost film or unavailable
Mr. Dingy engages Sweedie to be the family
cook. But she insists on bringing along her dog “Skinny” as well as her parrot.
Although Dingy (Leo White) hates dogs, he agrees to the deal so that he will
not lose yet another cook. But on the way to his home, the dog catchers attack “Skinny,”
forcing Sweedie to go into battle with the entire squad in order save her pet.
Once she reaches the Dingy house, she is ordered to make the dinner. But
worried about her dog, she instead gives him a bath in the dishpan, using the
best linen napkins to dry him off.
Soon she hears her boyfriend whistling for her over the back fence, and
she cannot resist going for a ride with him in his hansom cab.
While she was out, Mr. Dingy has beaten her dog, so she has no choice
but to floor him for his abuse, certainly not a good way to begin a new
job.
*
The New Teacher / 1915 || lost film or unavailable
Believe it or not, Sweedie is chosen by the
country school board to be a teacher. The moment she appears at the
schoolhouse, however, her pupils mock her as she becomes an easy target for
their bean shooters and rubber bands. But no matter how hard she tries she
cannot catch any of them in the act.
Finally, however, she is forced to break up a fight between two of her
students, Tim (Tommy Harper) and his rival (Harry Fagin) who are battling over
a little girl, Sadie (Eleanor Kahn). Her peace-making efforts evidently return
order to the school.
And
a while later one of the older members of the school board begins to pay
especial attention to the new schoolteacher, causing a great deal of small-town
gossip, ultimately leading to their demand that she be discharged. They win,
but only temporarily since the students all threaten to leave the school unless
she returns. The next morning Sweedie is back at the blackboard.
*
Sweedie Goes to College / 1915 || lost film or
unavailable
In her constant pursuit of something better,
Sweedie, still a cook, reads an ad in the newspaper for a maid willing to offer
her services in exchange for college tuition. Sweedie applies and is accepted.
At
the college dormitory the other girls cook a rarebit, an illegal act in their
sleeping quarters. Hearing their giggles the dormitory matron, Mrs. Knowledge
(Charlotte Mineau) approaches, the girls hiding their rarebit in Sweedie’s bed
as they pretend sleep.
Naturally, Mrs. Knowledge finds the forbidden dish and punishes the
innocent new student. The moment she leaves a pillow fight ensues, with Sweedie
being victorious.
The very next day, Sweedie receives a note from her Romeo asking her to
meet him at 11:00 P.M. so that they might elope. She tells him that she will
wear a mask and asks him to do the same.
Soon after, another coed (Gloria Swanson)
receives a similar note from her sweetheart suggesting the same thing. The
result, strange but predictable perhaps in “Sweedieland,” is that all four
elopers discover that they are about to be married to the wrong parties at the
very last moment.
Although later Swanson claimed that she hated the Sweedie series and
performing in this episode was beneath her dignity, in fact it was her first
major role, and she soon after fell in love and married Beery the following
year, divorcing him two years later.
*
Sweedie’s Hopeless Love / 1915 ||
lost film or unavailable
Sweedie is now in love with the grocery boy,
ordering up groceries at every possible opportunity just to get a glimpse of
his face. Unfortunately, she does at all appeal to the grocery deliverer (Ben
Turpin), and he attempts to keep his distance.
One
day, while attempting to tell the boy of her love, Sweedie is suddenly faced
with the arrival of her employer, Sweedie in her utter confusion pushing the
grocery boy into a closet and locking it.
That evening, when the man of the house returns, he unlocks the closet
only to find himself face to face with the grocery boy. Reproaching his wife,
he throws both Sweedie and her sweetheart into the street, the grocery boy
managing to escape.
Sometime later, however, he finds himself in a burning building, only to
be rescued, so he later discovers, by Sweedie. Deciding that he’d rather die
than get hooked up with Sweedie, he crawls back into the burning building.
*
Sweedie Learns to Ride / 1915 || lost film or
unavailable
Her arms covered with dough, Sweedie looks out
through the kitchen to catch a glimpse of her mistress (Betty Brown) mounting
her horse for her morning ride. Sweedie’s boring and tiresome life immediately
becomes nearly unbearable for her she, determining that she too will learn how
to ride a horse.
Ringing up her current boyfriend (Ben Turpin), who just happens to be
the captain of the mounted police squad, she tells him to bring over two horses
who are prepared to canter. He is so in love with her that he barely bothers to
ask her why. Sweedie, dressed in a modest riding outfit sets out to learn how
to ride. Of course, she finds it difficult to mount the animal, and once
mounted, she finds it difficult to get the animal to move and to stay on the
horse.
When the mistress returns from her ride to find her cook absent, she is
not only annoyed but calls the police to find the girl and arrest her.
The captain of the mounted police squad has no choice but to ride down
his girlfriend and take her back home under arrest, where Sweedie finds herself
cured of her interest that particular sport.
*
Sweedie in Vaudeville / 1915 ||
lost film or unavailable
Now working as a scrubwoman for a vaudeville
theater, Sweedie falls in love with the “props,” in this case human beings who
work for the company as incidental workers, actors, or figures who serve the
leads or appear in between the lead acts. In any event, she now becomes
enthused with idea of having a stage career.
Winning big in a local poker game, Sweedie suddenly finds herself with
enough financial resources to try her luck with a theater career. At a booking
office, she’s connected up with Slivers (Edmund Thompson), a
three-hundred-pound dancer, as partner; and they get a gig on what is called
the “ham and egg” circuit, dedicated to mediocre and untried talents. At the
theater they are taken on as “mop artists,” those that close after the big acts
when the crowds are thinning out.
But when their turn comes to go on, the other “props,” jealous of her
sudden rise in the theater, “crab” the act, attempting to sabotage with lights,
sets, and other theatrical devices their performance. While Sweedie and Slivers
dance, the wings fall in upon them as well as other normally inanimate props.
Sweedie suffers for her art for a few moments before advancing on the
“homeguard,” struggling to maintain possession of the stage.
*
Sweedie’s Hero / 1915 || lost film or
unavailable
Her
first mistake is to perceive the train of a woman’s gown as a mop, before
accidentally overturning a dining table after being pushed in the dining room
by an irate clerk.
The
hotel bellhop will not permit her to ride in the elevator, so she is forced to
walk up ten flights of stairs, tripping and falling back down all ten again.
She
hazards the ledge of sixteenth floor to windows, but in so doing loses her
balance and almost falls to her death. The nasty bellhop appears at the right
moment and pulls her back in to safety again, she falling upon his neck and
calling him “My Hero.”
*
Sweedie’s Finish / 1915 || lost film or
unavailable
This time around, in what is truly the last
true Sweedie film, she is a servant girl in love with a fireman (Arthur W.
Bates), who like grocery boy before him does not return her affections. The
fireman escapes her caresses by being called to a fire.
The
next day she finds him with another woman and knocks him about a bit in
revenge. Soon she opens her own barbershop, her first customer, quite by
accident, being the faithless fireman. And a bit like the Sweeney Todd of
history provides him with an unpleasant shave, interrupted by the news—not the
first time in the Sweedie series—that she has become an heiress.
With that news, the fireman suddenly finds that he is very much in love
with her, declaring that he wants to marry. To celebrate, they take a ride in
Sweedie’s new car. The romance, however, ends when the car is swept up,
presumably in a tornado, and they disappear from view.
*
Wallace Beery (screenwriter and director) Sweedie,
the Janitor / 1916 || lost film or
unavailable
This film was not truly meant to be, I should
imagine, one of the “Sweedie” films since in this case Sweedie is apparently a
man who is married. The script, for the first time, was also credited to Beery,
as was the direction. Apparently this movie was so uninteresting, once he had
rid himself of his drag personae, that even the people who wrote up the
synopsis could find little say about it. I quote in full the IMDb entry:
“A janitor finds a piece of jewelry dropped by a young woman, which he
in turn gives to his wife. Feeling sorry for the young woman, the janitor tries
to straighten things out, with many funny complications.”
*
As a lost piece of pop culture, this series
appears to very interesting in several respects, most notably that it
represents the loves and adventures of a poor immigrant working girl but through
the lens of a heterosexual male in drag. That contradictory viewpoint alone
deserves extensive comment.
Moreover, if I were a younger person seeking to discuss social or
critical issues of the silent cinema I would want to further explore the
relationship in these films between Sweedie and her employers’ dependency upon
the social services of the police forces and the firemen, who are called into
action in several of these episodes, while at the same time always posing a
threat to the central figure. What’s even odder given that dichotomy of
protector and threat, is that Sweedie, over and over, falls in love with
policemen and firemen.
Finally, one has to ask why a woman who in different moments along the
way became a Countess, a teacher, taught herself how to swim and ride a horse,
and began, at least, a college education, continually return to the professions
of cook, maid, servant girl, barkeeper, clerk, and cleaning woman? Is Sweedie,
ultimately, a unified character exploring a wide range of different experiences
and different times in her life; or is Sweedie an amalgamation of immigrant Swedish
women, rather like Gertrude Stein’s different portraits of working women in Three
Lives?
Los Angeles, December 22, 2021
Reprinted from World Cinema Review
(December 2021).
