A Scrambled Honeymoon (1916) Online

Alas, only the first reel of this two-reel comedy exists. Marcel Perez was a Spaniard whose career as a screen comic flourished from about 1907 through his death a couple of decades later, but it seemed that every time he garnered enough notice to interest the press, he would change studios, country, birthday, marriage status and name.

He had first attracted the industry's attention in 1907 in a bone-breaking French comedy. Within a couple of years, this got him a gig starring in Italian comedies as Robinet and/or Tweedledum. In 1916, he came to the United States and worked among some of the minor players as a comedian and writer-director, until he lost a leg. Although he was talented enough to keep working and was doing some great work melding bone-breaking Italian slapstick with American slapstick.... well, he lost a leg in the early 1920s, died five years later and his stuff fell into obscurity, like a lot of silent comedians. It took about 80 years for Steve Massa to notice that the guy who made this great comedy in 1907 was the same guy who made these great comedies about 1913 and the same three or four guys who made these great comedies from 1916-1924, all in four or five different nations. And now he and Ben Model have put a second batch of them on dvd in THE MARCEL PEREZ COLLECTION vol. 2.

So, in this one, he's sitting on a bench in the park, when he hears screaming. He rescues pretty Babette Perez from the wrecked canoe, but phones the cops to rescue her mom, hatchet-faced Louise Carver, while the two of them share a soda. After they get married (Babette and Marcel), Miss Carver invites herself on the honeymoon.

The extant footage ends there, but there are some wonderful gags in what's available. Take a look at it, and the seven other offerings on the disc.