Thundering Taxis

As I said above, I'd love to know more about the making of this film. You see, in the early 1930s, the Hal Roach Studio made a series of films under the umbrella term 'The Taxi Boys'. Some starred Ben Blue and Billy Gilbert, but a few had different Taxi Boy characters--such as Clyde Cook and Billy Bevan. Now here is the part that makes me curious. Why do the Clyde Cook ones look as if they are pieced together with clips from silent films? After all, silent movies were filmed at a slightly slower speed than sound films (16-22 frames per second versus 24 for sound) and when silent clips are inserted in talking pictures, the silent portions run too quickly. Could these films be made up of new footage and an older Roach film? Or, could they have shot some footage and not used it--only to use it later in these films? I tried to find out more about the series on the internet without any success.

This short has to do with the two cabbies having problems with a nasty rival cab company--one that will do ANYTHING to stop their competition. As things heat up, there are lots of scenes of speeding cars and crazy driving and the film looks more like a Sennett film because of this. It's all fun but there isn't a lot of depth--just lots of silent era style gags.