IT’S A GIFT (1923)
Short

Article 3664 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-11-2011
Posting Date: 8-26-2011
Directed by Hugh Fay
Featuring Snub Pollard, Marie Mosquini, William Gillespie
Country: USA
What it is: Silent comedy

An inventor is invited to demonstrate his new powerful gasoline substitute.

This is an energetic and fun silent comedy. The first half mostly deals with the various gadgets Pollard uses to help him serve himself breakfast him bed; he uses a series of pull-strings that light stoves, make coffee, and coax chickens to lay eggs. The real fun begins when we discover how our inventor gets around town; he tools around in a motorless bullet-shaped vehicle that is propelled by a magnet he holds out to follow other vehicles. This is the funniest sequence in the movie, but it will leave you wondering why, if he’s invented a super fuel, why doesn’t he use it? The answer makes for the climax of the short. This one is highly amusing.