Movie producer-director Mack Sennett, often called the “King of Comedy”, guided many performers to stardom in the fledgling motion picture industry. With fantastic imagination he developed slapstick comedies that achieved phenomenal popularity.
Mack Sennett Canada to California
Born Michael Sinnott January 17, 1880 in Richmond, Québec, he worked as a labourer after his family moved to Connecticut when he was 17, but wanted to be an opera or theatrical singer in New York. By chance, he met Canadian vaudeville star Marie Dressler who gave him a letter of introduction to Broadway producer David Belasco. Though he was not hired by Belasco, Sennett stayed in New York to sing and act in burlesque theatres.
Mack Sennett began his motion picture career in 1908 acting in Biograph Studio productions directed by D. W. Griffith and learning the art of film direction. Well established as a film maker by 1912, he founded the Keystone Film Company in California with two partners.
Mack Sennett Slapstick and the Keystone Kops
Making at least one split-reel comedy each week, the Keystone Film Company included actors Mabel Normand, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Ben Turpin, Ford Sterling, and Fred Mace.
Sennett’s unique comedic performance as a policeman during his burlesque appearances was the beginning of his phenomenally popular Keystone Kops. Likely forerunners of those madcap characters were presented in his films When the Fire Bells Ring, and The Would-be Shriner.
The physical comedies of Mack Sennett, with people performing real labour and scoundrels attempting to steal their possessions or do them harm, were accomplished through a combination of actors’ burlesque-style actions and his use of the camera. Sennett cleverly used different camera angles and fast cranking, with specific editing to create his fantastic illusions.
Mabel Normand Comedienne
Undoubtedly Keystone Studio’s major star in the early films, Mabel Normand was originally cast as a bathing beauty, but quickly became a star of Sennett’s comedies. Audiences loved it when the vivacious comedienne threw a pie into the face of a startled Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle in Noise from the Deep.
Mack Sennett hired burlesque performer Charlie Chaplin in 1913, and cast him in at least 35 comedies. Sennett thought he’d made a mistake when the actor showed discomfort in front of the camera, but Mable Normand guided the future star as he developed his Little Tramp character and learned the art of film acting. Chaplin left Keystone after one year, apparently because he did not want to take orders from anyone.
Marie Dressler in Tillie’s Punctured Romance
Aware that D. W. Griffith was making the full-length feature film Birth of a Nation for 1915 release, Mack Sennett decided to produce the first feature-length comedy motion picture. Released in November 1914, Tillie’s Punctured Romance, starring Marie Dressler with Mabel Normand and Charlie Chaplin supporting, was one of Sennett’s greatest successes.
Sennett relinquished control of the Keystone trademark in 1917 and formed his own company, the Mack Sennett Comedies Corp. where he continued his production of both comedy shorts and feature-length motion pictures.
He made an easy transition into ‘talkies’, and his successful short comedies with newcomers such as Bing Crosby led to his work being picked up by Paramount Pictures. In 1935 he directed The Timid Young Man with Buster Keaton and Way Up Thar with Joan Davis for Educational Pictures before going into semi retirement.
With his legendary ability to recognize talent, Sennett was instrumental in helping establish careers of a great many performers including Marie Dressler, W. C. Fields, Gloria Swanson, Carole Lombard, and Bing Crosby.
Academy Awards for Mack Sennett
The great film industry pioneer was presented with an Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Novelty in 1932 for his Wrestling Swordfish. In 1937 he received a Special Academy Award "...for his lasting contribution to the comedy technique of the screen, the basic principles of which are as important today as when they were first put into practice, the Academy presents a Special Award to that master of fun, discoverer of stars, sympathetic, kindly, understanding comedy genius - Mack Sennett."
The “King of Comedy” Mack Sennett who said that his performers’ work was to create pandemonium and chaos, died November 5, 1960 in Los Angeles, California. Though he hadn’t worked for years, the film industry pioneer had received renewed interest during the early years of television when his slapstick comedy and Keystone Kops were enjoyed by new audiences.
Sources:
- Mack Sennett: King of Comedy, as Told to Cameron Shipp , Doubleday & Co. 1954
- Silent Stars by Jeanine Basinger, Wesleyan University Press 1999
Kathleen Airdrie - Kathleen has thirty years' freelance writing experience covering history, biographical profiles, environmental and social issues
