Detained

In this Stan Laurel comedy, minus Oliver Hardy, "Detained," shown as part of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival "Laurel or Hardy" program, Laurel is watering public trees, as one does, before he's mistaken for an escaped convict. Not much sophisticated humor or sustained gags in the broad slapstick of this prison comedy. Laurel's mannerisms seem overly Chaplin-esque at times. Later, he breaks the fourth wall, looking directly at the camera, to encourage the spectator to laugh at a prison guard dying from the electric chair. I don't think it was effective. The following gag involving Laurel accidently hanging himself is more strange than funny, too. After that, though, it's back to the usual knockabout, including Laurel's apparent preference for posterior-(de)based gags--especially ones involving pickaxes, as also evidenced in "Moonlight and Noses" (1925), which he directed.