L-KO Kompany

Logo for the L-KO Kompany

The L-KO Kompany, or L-KO Komedies, was an American motion picture company founded by Henry Lehrman that produced silent one-, two- and very occasionally three-reel comedy shorts between 1914 and 1919. The initials L-KO stand for "Lehrman KnockOut".

History

Silent film star Eva Novak had her film debut with L-KO Kompany in Roped into Scandal (1917). Another of her films with L-KO, The Sign of the Cucumber, still survives.

By the spring of 1914, Henry "Pathé" Lehrman had directed several important Keystone Kops comedies including The Bangville Police (1913) and Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914), Charlie Chaplin's debut. After a disagreement with producer Mack Sennett, Lehrman left Keystone, along with star performer Ford Sterling, to found Sterling Comedies under the umbrella of the Universal Film and Manufacturing Co., later Universal Pictures. After a couple of months, Lehrman suffered a break with Sterling as well and founded L-KO as a separate unit within Universal. L-KO's first comedy star was veteran English comic Billie Ritchie, who had played the role of the drunk in Fred Karno's stage production A Night in the English Music Hall before Chaplin did. Ritchie made his film debut in the first L-KO production, Love and Surgery, which was released October 25, 1914. Also making their first films in this venture were Gertrude Selby, a comedienne who became the main female foil in L-KO comedies, and Fatty Voss, L-KO's answer to Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Louise Orth, who had appeared in some Biograph comedies and would go on to appear in many L-KO's, was also aboard for the first release. Before long this group of performers was joined by Hank Mann and other disaffected talent from Mack Sennett's "fun factory," such as Alice Howell, Harry Gribbon and ultimately Mack Swain, whose "Ambrose" character continued at L-KO for a time. Henry Bergman had made one picture with Phillips Smalley before turning up at L-KO; not long after he would join Charlie Chaplin's regular troupe of character actors. Bergman was the original "fat" comic in L-KO films, and when he left, Fatty Voss came in to replace him.

Lehrman proved even more frugal with budget than Sennett had been, and he favored a rough-and-tumble style of slapstick that reputedly resulted in injury. Author Kalton C. Lahue reported that there were stunt persons and bit players of the time who would not answer a call from L-KO owing to the possibility of danger. Lehrman eventually brought on directors John G. Blystone, Harry Edwards and David Kirkland to help raise the total output of L-KO, but stingily refused to award directors credit for L-KO films.

As the result of yet another dispute—this time with executives at Universal—Lehrman left L-KO towards the end of 1916 and took over the Sunshine Comedies unit at Fox. After Lehrman's departure, John G. Blystone headed L-KO for a few months but he ultimately went to Fox Sunshine as well. L-KO nonetheless kept going for quite some time and proved a valuable training ground for new or developing comedy talent. Director Charles Parrott, better known as Charley Chase, came onto the L-KO lot in August 1918 and directed a few subjects through to near the end of L-KO's existence. Dapper comic Raymond Griffith made his film debut at L-KO in 1915 and comedienne Eva Novak did so in 1917. Even Fatty Voss managed to direct one two-reeler, Fatty's Feature Fillum, just before his untimely death in 1917, his whole film career spent at L-KO. What finally brought around the end of L-KO was not Lehrman's departure, nor declining receipts for L-KO's product, but an outbreak of the Spanish influenza bug on the lot that forced Universal to shut the whole studio down. L-KO's last release, An Oriental Romeo (1919) starring Chinese funnyman Chai Hong, was released on September 24, 1919, but the studio had already been closed for good in May.

Legacy

While L-KO never had a break-out star as prominent as Charlie Chaplin, in nearly every other way it was successful in competing with Keystone; moreover, as Mack Sennett broke with the Triangle Film Corporation in July, 1917, L-KO managed to outlast Keystone by a year. However, it remains an extremely obscure Silent Comedy brand. Although L-KO produced around 300 titles in its five year existence; less than 10 percent of these films are known to exist today. Given Lehrman's preference for violent sight gags and Ritchie's confrontational style of humor, surviving L-KO films stand as some of the edgiest and darkest entries in the annals of American Silent Comedy.

See also

Henry Lehrman

Confirmed Extant Films

• Love and Surgery (1914) directed by Henry Lehrman and starring Billie Ritchie
• Partners in Crime (1914) directed by Henry Lehrman and starring Billie Ritchie
• Cupid in a Hospital (1915) directed by Henry Lehrman and starring Billie Ritchie
• Every Inch a Hero (1915) directed by Henry Lehrman
• Almost a Scandal (1915) directed by Henry Lehrman and starring Billie Ritchie
• Poor Policy (1915) directed by Harry Edwards and starring Billie Ritchie
• A Stool Pigeon's Revenge (1916) directed by John G. Blystone and starring Hank Mann
• Love and Sour Notes (1915) directed by John G. Blystone and starring Billie Ritchie
• The Child Needs a Mother (1915) directed by John G. Blystone and starring Fatty Voss
• Vendetta in a Hospital (1915) starring Billie Ritchie
• Silk Hose and High Pressure (1915) directed by Henry Lehrman and starring Billie Ritchie
• No Flirting Allowed (1915) starring Hank Mann
• A Tale of Twenty Stories (1915) directed by Vin Moore and starring Billie Ritchie (fragment only)
• Sin on the Sabbath (1915) starring Billie Ritchie
• Gertie's Gasoline Glide (1916) starring Gertrude Selby
• Billie's Waterloo (1916) starring Billie Ritchie
• Cold Hearts and Hot Flames (1916) directed by John G. Blystone and starring Billie Ritchie
• Live Wires and Love Sparks (1916) directed by Henry Lehrman and starring Billie Ritchie
• Bombs and Bandits (1917) directed by Vin Moore and starring Billy Bevan
• The Sign of the Cucumber (1917) directed by Richard Smith and starring Eva Novak
• Soapsuds and Sirens (1917) directed by Noel M. Smith and starring Harry Lorraine
• Adventurous Ambrose (1918) directed by Walter S. Fredericks and starring Mack Swain
• The Belles of Liberty (1917) directed by James D. Davis and starring Eva Novak
• The King of the Kitchen (1918) directed by Frank Griffin and starring Harry Gribbon
• Charlie, the Little Daredevil (1919) directed by Alfred J. Goulding and starring Chai Hong
• The Freckled Fish (1919) directed by Joseph Le Brandt and starring Chai Hong (fragment only)
• All Jazzed Up (1917) directed by William Watson and starring Eva Novak

References

• Simon Louvish, Keystone: The Life and Clowns of Mack Sennett, Faber & Faber, New York, 2003.

External links

• IMDB entry on L-KO
• Museum of MOdern Art (MOMA), Cruel and Unusual Comedy Blog
• Images Journal: Slapstick Encyclopedia Vol. 4
• Cincecon screening: The Sign of the Cucumber
• Slapsticon bio: Billie Ritchie