The Fatal Mallet

The Fatal Mullet Would Have Been the Funnier Movie (Maybe)

The Fatal Mallet by Mack Sennett, 1914:



Chaplin and Sennett square off, trading open-palm slaps over the love of Mabel Normand who resembles Jane Adams / How does Chaplin time the whiplash from taking a wooden plank to the mouth so well? / More brick-throwing, as in Normand's Mabel at the Wheel / More two loves disrupted outdoors as in every Keystoner / More fisti-pinwheels into ponds on right-of-frame (cf. Twenty Minutes of Love) / This isn't exactly Claire Denis / Although it shares groin-thrusts and ass-kicks / It's got a mallet (cf. Caught in a Cabaret) that like Mjǫlnir expends untold joules / (Thirty years of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes)

The Fatal Mallet by Mack Sennett, 1914:




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Previous pieces on Chaplin at Cinemasparagus:

Making a Living [Lehrman, 1914] / Kid Auto Races at Venice, Cal. [Lehrman, 1914] / Mabel's Strange Predicament [Normand, 1914] / Between Showers [Lehrman, 1914] / A Film Johnnie [George Nichols, 1914] / Tango Tangles [Sennett, 1914] / His Favorite Pastime [George Nichols, 1914] / Cruel, Cruel Love [George Nichols, 1914] / The Star Boarder [George Nichols, 1914] / Mabel at the Wheel [Normand and Sennett, 1914] / Twenty Minutes of Love [Chaplin and Maddern, 1914] / Caught in a Cabaret [Chaplin and Normand, 1914] / Caught in the Rain [Chaplin, 1914] / A Busy Day [Sennett, 1914]

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