Lupino Lane

Anita Garvin

Wallace Lupino

Fandango

In which Anita plays a sultry senorita

I don&apos;t know if he ever made a great two-reel comedy, but I like to watch Lupino Lane anyhow. He was a performer gifted with amazing acrobatic agility, and in his films there&apos;s usually a memorable moment or two, sometimes several, when he does something physically incredible, so incredible you&apos;d swear you were watching a cartoon character instead of a flesh-and-blood person. In pursuit of a gag Lane would also employ special effects, such as double-exposure, wires, dummies, or footage printed backwards, but meanwhile he was plainly capable of performing eye-boggling stunts without any camera trickery. Where he falls short, I believe, is in characterization and plot. Lane just didn&apos;t care about that stuff. All he wanted, it seems, was to come up with laugh-provoking gags. His comedies are full of them, and he performs them adroitly, but when the show is over we&apos;re not left with much, except the recollection of a funny little guy with a blank face who could do the scissor-jump, run up walls, and twist his body into pretzels.

A good case in point: Fandango, a short Lane made for Educational Pictures in 1928. It&apos;s pleasant enough, and amusing at times, as long as you don&apos;t require a plot or expect dimensional characters. If you want basic silent comedy chuckles, you&apos;ll get them. Our setting is Bullonia, &quot;the land of romance, castanets, onions and sweet zephyrs of garlic.&quot; Actually, it looks rather like a back-lot version of Spain or Latin America. More to the point, the atmosphere suggests the Doug Fairbanks vehicle The Gaucho, which was in general release when this short was made. Lane&apos;s versatile utilization of a bull-whip, the basis for many of the film&apos;s gags, is reminiscent of both The Gaucho and Doug&apos;s earlier feature Don Q, Son of Zorro. That&apos;s the context, but Fandango isn&apos;t a flat-out parody of Doug&apos;s work; rather, the Fairbanks films supplied material for comedy, i.e. bullfights, exotic senoritas with fans, guitar serenades, etc. And presto, you&apos;ve got a Lupino Lane two-reeler.

Anita Garvin is in this film, which is a good enough reason to watch. She plays a sultry, aggressive man-eater type, and she looks like she could break Lane in half. (And during the film&apos;s best sequence in the second reel, when she dances with our hero, she practically does so.) There&apos;s a great shot of Anita swaggering across a room towards the camera, moving briefly out of focus and then right up to the lens, in tight close-up, giving us a smoldering look. The byplay between Garvin and Lane, who is understandably terrified of her, is enjoyable. Unfortunately, she disappears from the action for a spell, while Lane gets involved in a more conventional conflict with a villainous figure introduced as &quot;a tough egg -- slightly scrambled.&quot; This mug is played by Lane&apos;s real-life brother Wallace Lupino, his frequent screen foil. They play off each other adroitly, but the best gags are saved for the climax, in a café, when Anita returns and dances with our diminutive hero. She twirls him with vigor, and twists his arm until it seems to turn into rubber; then he does the splits down to the floor, and she drags him back and forth in that position. (Ouch!) There are more stunts involving whips, and for a grand finale the café is invaded by angry bulls, escaped from the nearby arena.

And so it goes, culminating in a cute animated gag. That&apos;s Fandango, and it&apos;s fine for what it is, as long as you&apos;re not expecting something along the lines of One Week or Two Tars. Looking for a &quot;great&quot; Lupino Lane short may be just as pointless looking for a &quot;great&quot; Flip the Frog cartoon. You enjoy them while they last, laugh at the funny parts, and move on.

I don't know if he ever made a great two-reel comedy, but I like to watch Lupino Lane anyhow. He was a performer gifted with amazing acrobatic agility, and in his films there's usually a memorable moment or two, sometimes several, when he does something physically incredible, so incredible you'd swear you were watching a cartoon character instead of a flesh-and-blood person. In pursuit of a gag Lane would also employ special effects, such as double-exposure, wires, dummies, or footage printed backwards, but meanwhile he was plainly capable of performing eye-boggling stunts without any camera trickery. Where he falls short, I believe, is in characterization and plot. Lane just didn't care about that stuff. All he wanted, it seems, was to come up with laugh-provoking gags. His comedies are full of them, and he performs them adroitly, but when the show is over we're not left with much, except the recollection of a funny little guy with a blank face who could do the scissor-jump, run up walls, and twist his body into pretzels.

A good case in point: Fandango, a short Lane made for Educational Pictures in 1928. It's pleasant enough, and amusing at times, as long as you don't require a plot or expect dimensional characters. If you want basic silent comedy chuckles, you'll get them. Our setting is Bullonia, "the land of romance, castanets, onions and sweet zephyrs of garlic." Actually, it looks rather like a back-lot version of Spain or Latin America. More to the point, the atmosphere suggests the Doug Fairbanks vehicle The Gaucho, which was in general release when this short was made. Lane's versatile utilization of a bull-whip, the basis for many of the film's gags, is reminiscent of both The Gaucho and Doug's earlier feature Don Q, Son of Zorro. That's the context, but Fandango isn't a flat-out parody of Doug's work; rather, the Fairbanks films supplied material for comedy, i.e. bullfights, exotic senoritas with fans, guitar serenades, etc. And presto, you've got a Lupino Lane two-reeler.

Anita Garvin is in this film, which is a good enough reason to watch. She plays a sultry, aggressive man-eater type, and she looks like she could break Lane in half. (And during the film's best sequence in the second reel, when she dances with our hero, she practically does so.) There's a great shot of Anita swaggering across a room towards the camera, moving briefly out of focus and then right up to the lens, in tight close-up, giving us a smoldering look. The byplay between Garvin and Lane, who is understandably terrified of her, is enjoyable. Unfortunately, she disappears from the action for a spell, while Lane gets involved in a more conventional conflict with a villainous figure introduced as "a tough egg -- slightly scrambled." This mug is played by Lane's real-life brother Wallace Lupino, his frequent screen foil. They play off each other adroitly, but the best gags are saved for the climax, in a café, when Anita returns and dances with our diminutive hero. She twirls him with vigor, and twists his arm until it seems to turn into rubber; then he does the splits down to the floor, and she drags him back and forth in that position. (Ouch!) There are more stunts involving whips, and for a grand finale the café is invaded by angry bulls, escaped from the nearby arena.

And so it goes, culminating in a cute animated gag. That's Fandango, and it's fine for what it is, as long as you're not expecting something along the lines of One Week or Two Tars. Looking for a "great" Lupino Lane short may be just as pointless looking for a "great" Flip the Frog cartoon. You enjoy them while they last, laugh at the funny parts, and move on.

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