Must-Watch List Comparable to the Style of Nutt Stuff: Cult Guide

Dir: Arthur Hotaling

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

The boys are in a rivalry over a pretty girl.

Dir: Arthur Hotaling

A comic number, featuring two Irish characters. Their dress suits are stolen on the eve of a ball and each thinks the other guilty. They meet at the ball and a "rough house" ensues. This is entirely of the knockabout style of humor and makes only an average offering of the kind.

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

Dir: Arthur Hotaling

When the worthless husband refuses to fire up the furnace, his wife, weighing a full three hundred pounds, decides to go to work and be independent. She answers an ad asking for lady barbers. The lady barber shop is reaping a harvest, due to their staff of pretty girls, who coax in the patronage. And not the least patronizing of these patrons is the worthless husband. He and a dozen others partake in the various services the pretty girls render, from shaves to shines and manicures. And many are the flirtations carried on between the customers and the fair employees. The husband comes back for the third time that day for a shave. By that time his wife is established as one of the tonsorial artists. When she sees him in the chair and hears from the proprietress that he has been flirting with the girls, she orders him tied down and then smears his whole face and head with lather. After that punishment is inflicted, she turns him over her knee and spanks him.

Dir: Arthur Hotaling

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

The Gentleman Drunk returns to the hotel about midnight, climbing into bed with his silk hat on. Upstairs the Ham Actor climbs through the window and down a rope, beating his board bill. Across the hall, talking in whispers the Girl and her fiancé plan an elopement, enraged at parental objections to kissing in the hotel parlor. Hearing the Ham Actor scuffling down the wall on the rope, the Drunk staggers to the window and peers out, his silk hat falling to the ground below. Stealthily he creeps downstairs and onto the sidewalk to regain it. In the meantime the Girl and Man are ready for flight, but the irate parents catch them. The Drunk loses his nightgown, and to hide from some girls entering the hotel, rolls up in a rug and runs wildly through the halls. The Ham Actor has aroused the guests of the hotel, who think him a burglar. Nora in the kitchen is entertaining the Cop. Together they capture the Ham Actor and finally discover the Drunk in hiding under the sofa.

Dir: Arthur Hotaling

Playboy Bobby is somewhat useless. Shirley refuses to marry him unless he gets a job. He leaves his father's business and becomes a bus conductor. Shirley has a baby, which is kidnapped by George (the villain), Bobby and the nurse (uncredited) pursue the kidnapper, and after some high ladder work, they rescue the baby, George is captured by the police and Bobby's father get to see his new grandson.

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

Dir: Arthur Hotaling

The jealous husband suspects that his wife is fickle but cannot discover any evidence until the butler hands her a letter one morning. He snatches it from her, and only waiting to read "My Dearest Sweetheart," tears it up and storms about the room. The wife pleads with him, but he goes out and buys a revolver. The wife, changing her clothes, also goes out. The cook, spying the discarded dress across her mistress' bed, puts it on, in celebration of an evening with the butler. When the husband returns and sees, in the half-lit dining room, the cook with his wife's dress on, in the arms of a man, he draws his revolver and fires. The cook, though unhurt, falls to the floor. The husband turns in the hall just as his wife enters with a man by her side. The wife introduces her father to the trembling husband, who then realizes his mistake in not reading all of the letter which told of the parent's coming. The three go into the other room where the cook and the butler laughingly tell of the mistake in identity.