Thirst

Thirst (1917)

** (out of 4)

Another over-the-top comedy from Keystone starts off in a boarding house where the owner is constantly catching (and beating) people trying to leave without paying rent. That's about all of the plot I was able to understand here but that's certainly not all of it because there are at least three or four other plot devices going on. I just really couldn't figure out how they all tied together as it really did seem like the writer just gave up and told the crew to go out and film whatever they wanted. Mack Sennett believed the story really didn't matter as long as everything was happening fast enough to where the viewer wouldn't stop and think about what was happening. Well, I'm clearly not the target audience because I'm constantly wondering what they were trying to do and what type of story they were trying to tell. Again, if you actually find this stuff funny then perhaps you'd believe in what Sennett did. For me, at 20+ minutes this thing was just painfully slow in spots and it even wasted the talents of Mack Swain who plays his Ambrose character. In Keystone fashion the film ends with a pretty wild chase that's mildly entertaining but without the laughs there's really no point in watching this.