Summary
In the pastoral yet chaotic domain of Pop Hebenezer, the traditional agrarian lifestyle is subverted by a series of romantic entanglements and mechanical oddities. The narrative follows the patriarch’s struggle to suppress the amorous inclinations of his daughters, Lucy and Sally, who have found companionship in the hired help, Luke and Billy. Amidst this domestic friction, a menagerie of farm animals—a goat, donkey, dog, and pig—manifests a sentient hunger that triggers a sequence of slapstick thefts, eventually leading to the unjust scapegoating of the cook, Charlie. The plot thickens with Hebenezer’s invention of the 'Nutt motor,' a device intended to bestow absolute stability upon wheeled vehicles, which serves as a backdrop for the daughters’ creative labor avoidance, including a surreal scene featuring camouflaged trees and animals performing human chores. The arrival of two industrial thieves seeking the motor culminates in a high-stakes bait-and-switch involving a literal lion, transforming the bucolic farce into a frantic, predatory chase through the countryside.
Synopsis
Down on the farm old Pop Hebenezer had his troubles keeping his two daughters from spooning with his hired help. Luke loved Lucy, the younger daughter, and Billy loved Sally, the older one. The girls were serving their sweethearts with food but they forgot the food and made love. In the meantime the animal family, consisting of a goat, a donkey, a dog and a pig, were hungry, too. The dog spied the tray of food on the table, jumped through the window, grabbed the food and, ran away. Charlie, the oriental cook, the greatest little K. P. that ever was. He happened to pass outside of the window where the lovers were deeply engrossed, when they suddenly discovered the loss of their food, and blamed Charlie. They threw a pail of water over him for revenge. Pop invented a Nutt motor that would make anything on wheels stand as permanent as rock. The girls are keen about this, invention and all have a hand in perfecting it. When Pop looks around for his help he discovers Luke and Lucy on top of the barn on a see-saw. They had assigned the goat to beat the carpet and water the lawn, the donkey to put the hay in the loft, and the dog to mow the lawn. Sally and Billy camouflaged themselves like trees and were having a wild time all by their lonesome. Pop chases the lovers back to work and all is peaceful again. Two crooks are on their way to steal Pop's new invention, but the chief of police advises Pop of their arrival. The daughters put a lion in the case where the Nutt motor originally was, and the crooks steal this case and are very much surprised to find a not too loving lion staring them in the face. An uproarious chase follows, wherein the lion scares nearly everybody half to death.
Review Excerpt
"The silent era of cinema was often characterized by a frantic, almost desperate pursuit of the visceral gag, and A Lion Special stands as a testament to the era's uninhibited creativity. Produced during a time when the boundaries between domestic comedy and dangerous spectacle were porous, this film utilizes the Century Lions not merely as props, but as the primary catalysts for a narrative resolution that is as absurd as it is terrifying. To understand this film, one must look past the grainy c..."
