He Did and He Didn't
| He Did and He Didn't | |
|---|---|
 Film still | |
| Directed by | Roscoe Arbuckle |
| Written by | Roscoe Arbuckle |
| Produced by | Mack Sennett |
| Starring | Roscoe Arbuckle Mabel Normand Al St. John |
| Cinematography | Elgin Lessley |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Triangle Film Corporation |
Release date |
|
Running time | 20 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
He Did and He Didn't is a 1916 short comedy film starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Mabel Normand.[1]
During Production
The dark plot, extremely sophisticated for its time, involves a corpulent husband who finds himself consumed with jealousy when his wife's dashingly handsome old schoolmate unexpectedly turns up for dinner. The film was also written and directed by Arbuckle.
Because it was billed as a comedy, the ending attributes the assumptions of the husband, including the murder, to eating bad lobster. After several lighthearted comedies featuring Mabel Normand and Roscoe Arbuckle, this seemed to be an added dimension to film genre in general, in that it attributed serious jealousy fantasies to human nature, but still managed to maintain a cheerful demeanor overall in its approximate 20 minutes. It may be the first "dramedy" in existence.
The film was shot when many early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based in Fort Lee, New Jersey, at the beginning of the 20th century.[2]
Cast
- Roscoe Arbuckle - The Doctor
- Mabel Normand - The Doctor's Wife
- William Jefferson - Jack, the Doctor's Wife's Schoolmate
- Al St. John - Acrobatic burglar
- Joe Bordeaux - The Burglar's Accomplice (uncredited)
See also
References
- ^ Progressive Silent Film List: He Did and He Didn't at silentera.com
- ^ Koszarski, Richard (2004), Fort Lee: The Film Town, Rome, Italy: John Libbey Publishing -CIC srl, ISBN 0-86196-653-8
External links
- He Did and He Didn't at IMDb
- Lantern slide: He Did and He Didn't
- He Did and He Didn't is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
 | This 1910s short comedy film–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- 1916 films
- 1910s comedy films
- 1910s short films
- American films
- American comedy films
- American black-and-white films
- Films directed by Roscoe Arbuckle
- Films produced by Mack Sennett
- Keystone Studios films
- Triangle Film Corporation films
- American silent short films
- Films shot in Fort Lee
- Screenplays by Roscoe Arbuckle
- 1910s short comedy film stubs