Midnight at the Old Mill (1916) Online

Ham and Bud will never be given the accolades that Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, or even Clark & McCullough have garnered. Their comedy is from a much different time, before the coming of Hal Roach and a more "sophisticated" form of slapstick. And while they may lack subtlety, and their laugh-making power has somewhat diminished, I find their films quite enjoyable, much more than contemporary Keystone comedies of the same era. "Midnight at the Old Mill" has some nice "Guignol" touches with mysterious doctors in black and Ham having to play a corpse at one moment. In a rather fancy touch, the original nitrate release prints have the outdoor scenes (at the Old Mill) tinted a dark blue. So it seems that Kalem thought a bit more of this outing than some other Ham & Bud films to go to the added expense of tinting. 8mm prints of this film were made available by Blackhawk Films many years ago, and occasionally show up on eBay, which is where I found mine!