In a private sanitarium, where the patients are half dead old men, Eddie is the doctor's assistant, and the Doc puts him in full charge. Eddie fires the homely nurses and gets a bunch of stranded show girls in their place.
A crematorium moon glints off the iron bedrails while saxophones leak from the laundry chute—welcome to The Sleepyhead, a 1920 one-reeler that behaves like a nitrate fever dream rather than a polite comedy. Director William C. Dowlan, usually content to shepherd amiable farces, here mainlines absinthe into the veins ...
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Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.
Nicholas T. Barrows
Ralph Ince
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" A crematorium moon glints off the iron bedrails while saxophones leak from the laundry chute—welcome to The Sleepyhead, a 1920 one-reeler that behaves like a nitrate fever dream rather than a polite comedy. Director William C. Dowlan, usually content to shepherd amiable farces, here mainlines absinthe into the veins of the asylum picture. The resultant celluloid is part medical lampoon, part Jazz-Age bacchanal, and entirely unwilling to behave. Eddie Boland, rubber-limbed and pop-eyed, plays E..."
United States
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