The Recommended Vault Parallel to the Artistry of Dummies: Cult Guide

Dir: Larry Semon

Semon's character, working behind the scenes, creates mayhem during a vaudeville performance.

Dir: Larry Semon

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Scamps and Scandals perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

The story follows Larry as he attempts to help his sweetheart escape an unwanted wedding to a wealthy but unattractive suitor. The film concludes with a high-speed chase involving a car and a bed.

Dir: Larry Semon

A bumbling detective lands alongside the crooks even the police are afraid of. He makes his escape through the window to a woman's apartment, where the misadventures continue.

Dir: Charley Chase

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Dull Care perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

A young married couple volunteer to take charge of several orphans after the asylum has burned down. Of course they find their hands full with their troublesome charges.

Dir: Maurice Campbell

Carver Endicott, a young sophisticate, is rejected by his fiancée for being too foppish and dull. When she feigns an interest in his father, Carver attempts to disgrace his family name by working as a farmhand and later as a busboy in a hotel. However, the newspapers only praise him for his self-sacrificing principles; and finding that he cannot bring shame to the family through menial labor, he takes up with a notorious actress. But when this maneuver also fails, he returns to his former fiancée, who has no further complaint about his being an inexperienced dullard.

Dir: Richard Smith

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Kids Is Kids perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Two female candidates for Chief of Police live across the hall from each other, and their political rivalry follows them home, leading to plenty of hi-jinks.

Dir: Larry Semon

Larry's absurdly plush life of ease as a convict comes to an end when his sentence is up. Tossed out, he tries several ways, including a stickup to get back in the comfortable jail. Exchanging clothes with a lookalike escaped prisoner, he goes back, only to find he's to be hung. Now desperate to leave again, he joins other cons in a jailbreak.

Dir: Larry Semon

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of An Amateur Devil perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

The waiters of a fancy restaurant go on strike for better wages, threatening harm to any replacements that may be hired. Larry is among scabs hired to replace the striking waiters they must wait on tables and fight off the strikers.

Dir: Larry Semon

Larry applies for a job as a revenue officer, ready to catch bootleggers.

Dir: Edgar Jones

A mail-order bride arrives at a Maine lumber camp but doesn't like her prospective husband.