Chester is a trolley conductor who has a child's bank in which to carry his cash and whose usual pastime is robbing the company of nickels by failing to ring up fares..

United States

A trolley bell rings like a guilty conscience in Mack Sennett’s penny-pinching fable The Great Nickel Robbery, and every clang is a tiny confession. Picture the scene: dawn siphons sepia through the windshield of a Los Angeles streetcar circa 1929. Chester Conklin’s walrus mustache bristles against the coin-changer, ...

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Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.

John G. Blystone

John G. Blystone
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" A trolley bell rings like a guilty conscience in Mack Sennett’s penny-pinching fable The Great Nickel Robbery, and every clang is a tiny confession. Picture the scene: dawn siphons sepia through the windshield of a Los Angeles streetcar circa 1929. Chester Conklin’s walrus mustache bristles against the coin-changer, a contraption as diabolically intricate as any vault in the circus capers or even the historical regicide tragedies of Richard III. The register’s bell is rigged to sing only when ..."


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