The Yokel

Snub Pollard plays a country boy who is going to see his aunt in the big city. Recently, Snub and his father became rich when they struck oil but the nasty aunt doesn't know this. So, when Snub interrupts the aunt's fancy party, she treats him like a leper....until she learns he's a rich guy. Then, she throws her vampish daughter at Snub and tries to get them married. However, the nice maid (how inexplicably loves Snub) interrupts the wedding by having a fake note delivered--one that says Snub is broke. Well, of course the wedding is off and Snub leaves--and meets the maid who explains about the letter. At about the same time, Snub's father arrives and tells everyone the truth--and the wedding party then chases Snub down--trying to force him to through with the wedding.

One of my all-time favorite silent comedy shorts is Pollard's "It's a Gift". It abounds with wonderful gags--tons of them. However, here the gags are more forced and you know it's not one of the comic's better films when the big laugh-getting is when he brings his duck to the fancy party. Still, it has its moments and is worth a look if you like old-time comedy.

After ten years of working for Hal Roach, first as a supporting comedian for Harold Lloyd and then in his own series of shorts, Snub Pollard was let go. His style of comedy had not kept up with the new, more realistic, character-based comedy that had emerged, first under Lloyd, then Eddie Boland and now with Charley Chase. Snub had remained a clown with a strange mustache whose sharply executed gags determined the story, rather than the other way around. So he went out on his own and, with a distribution deal from the Weiss Brothers, started his own series.

Unfortunately, while his gag construction remained sharp -- there's a very nicely executed, if standard split-screen gag that kicks off this short -- neither his story construction nor titles -- some of which are wince-inducing in their attempts to be funny -- had advanced. Snub would go back into vaudeville, make some more shorts for the Weiss Brothers and continue to fade: into B western comedy shorts -- where he could be spotted, looking rather bizarre in the same urban costumes he had worn in 1916 -- and finally into uncredited bits. He can be glimpsed briefly in 1961's TWIST AROUND THE CLOCK, still wearing his mustache, doing the twist on a mountain in the Alps.

The story is a standard one: Snub comes to town with his pet duck. People think that he has struck oil at home, and so is briefly pursued by the young women, before settling on Thelma Davis. The gags, as I have said, are well designed and executed, but they are not novel in execution. Snub himself remains a cipher. It's not really worth your time as everything in it has been done better elsewhere.