Bears and Bad Men

While Larry Semon does not star in Rips and Rushes, its confident gags and frenetic pace suggest his touch. In the knockabout one-reeler set in a dance studio, three suitors compete for the girl. James Aubrey, the actor playing the father’s preferred suitor, may look like a Chaplin imitator, but he came by those skills honorably, born like Chaplin in Britain and likewise coming to the U.S. with Fred Karno’s troupe. Nevertheless it’s Alice Mann, with her wacky headdress and knowing glance, who steals the show. Suffice it to say that many vases are broken and pants ripped before she escapes out the window with the handsomest of the beaus.

A clerk is given $10,000 to deposit at the bank, but the bank is closed for the night so he tries to get to the bank president's house with the money.

Larry's absurdly plush life of ease as a convict comes to an end when his sentence is up. Tossed out, he tries several ways, including a stickup to get back in the comfortable jail. Exchanging clothes with a lookalike escaped prisoner, he goes back, only to find he's to be hung. Now desperate to leave again, he joins other cons in a jailbreak.

Larry has to fight off a bunch of crooks who are after his bag of jewels.

A harried propman backstage at a theater must put up with malfunctioning wind machines, roosters that spit nitroglycerine, and a gang planning to rob the theater's payroll.

Boisterous gangster kingpin Bull Weed rehabilitates his former lawyer from his alcoholic haze, but complications arise when he falls for Weed's girlfriend.

"Risks and Roughnecks" is an early Larry Semon effort with outrageously funny acrobatics as takes care of business in a big brawl.

The Midnight Cabaret is a short 1923 American comedy starring Larry Semon and featuring Oliver Hardy.

The Sportsman is an American film comedy first released in 1921, directed by Larry Semon and Norman Taurog. The film stars Larry Semon, Lucille Carlisle, Al Thompson, Frank Alexander and William Hauber.

Unlucky Larry finds himself pursued by the police after he inadvertently steals a man's car and kidnaps his girlfriend.

The storm, which takes up most of the second reel, is a trial run for the storm sequence in The Wizard Of Oz which Semon would make in 1925. Fox released a comedy that was an exact copy of Lightning Love just before the Semon film was due to come out. Albert E. Smith noticed the similarities and on September 5, 1923 attempted to have the Fox film pulled from the exhibitors.

Comedy on the golf links.

Larry might be a hick causing a lot of trouble at the farm, but he shows he can outsmart those crooked city folks!

Larry helps a girl escape her wedding to a fat man.

The plot of this film really isn't that important. Instead, the sight gags and chase scenes are paramount--with some of the most impressive chase footage you'll ever see. All the near-misses with the speeding train were amazing and the scene where the car gets smashed by the truck are absolutely priceless.

Larry going investigating an Oriental opium den. And opium is to Larry what spinach is for Popeye!