Robinet vuol fare il jockey (1910) Online

Just why Robinet wants to be a jockey is never revealed, but this is a split-reel comedy, so we don't have time for such subtleties as motivation. In order to get down to the right weight, he goes through a course of rigorous training by being beaten to a pulp.

That's about the standard for Italian slapstick comedy in this period; if the comic doesn't survive with ease a series of events that would have the homicide cops called in for a human being, it wasn't considered funny.

Perez was actually a very talented comic and by the end of the decade he was directing and starring in comedies under a variety of names in the United States. He wound up injuring himself in a stunt in 1922 and died a few years later.

So the next time you look at one of these movies and say "Oh, that's clearly a dummy being twirled about and thrown out a window", remember that sometimes they used a human being. Nor did it always turn out well.