The Spice of Life No. 5: A Weird Eight-Minute Time Capsule

Is it worth your time?

Look, if you have eight minutes and a weird interest in what passed for comedy in the early days of cinema, sure, give it a go. It is essentially a fast-paced collage of humor that moves at a breakneck speed. If you are the type of person who needs a coherent narrative or modern production values, you are going to hate this. It’s a relic, plain and simple.

The whole thing feels less like a movie and more like someone flipping through a very dusty, very loud joke book. "Doc" Rockwell is doing his level best to keep the energy up, but some of these bits feel like they were written on the back of a napkin five minutes before filming. It’s chaotic.

Gracie Worth pops in and out, and the interplay between them is… well, it’s certainly aggressive. They are constantly interrupting each other, which I guess was the point, but it makes the whole thing feel like a fight for oxygen. At one point, the editing gets so jumpy I actually had to check if I was still watching the same short.

It reminded me a bit of the frantic energy in Okay Toots!, where everything is just a little bit too loud for the room. It’s funny in a way that makes you go, "Wait, did they really think that was the punchline?" but you keep watching anyway because you’re waiting to see what happens next.

Odd little things:

• The background music is relentless. It never stops. Not even for a second.
• There is a moment involving a prop that is so clearly a piece of cardboard I actually laughed out loud.
• The transition between scenes feels like they just cut the film with a pair of kitchen scissors.

It’s not a masterpiece, and honestly, it doesn't try to be. It’s just eight minutes of people trying to make you chuckle before you can get bored. It’s definitely an oddity compared to something like The Potterymaker, which takes its time to set a scene. This one just wants you to keep up, whether you want to or not. 🤷‍♂️

I wouldn't suggest building an evening around this, but for a quick curiosity? Yeah, it’s alright. Just don't expect the jokes to stick with you for more than a minute after the screen goes black.