Back to the Farm

Back to the Farm is a lost 1914 silent comedy short film that co-starred Oliver "Babe" Hardy and Herbert "Bert" Tracy. Written by Will Louis and produced by the Lubin Manufacturing Company of Pennsylvania, the short was filmed in Jacksonville, Florida.[3] It was directed by Joseph Levering, likely in collaboration with the chief director on Lubin's production staff in Jacksonville, Arthur Hotaling.

Back to the Farm
Film still of Hardy (left) and Tracy
Directed byJoseph Levering with
Arthur Hotaling
Produced bySiegmund Lubin
Written byWill Louis
StarringOliver "Babe" Hardy
Herbert "Bert" Tracy
Distributed byLubin Manufacturing Company
Release date
August 18, 1914[1]
Running time
Listed "about 1,000 feet" (approximately 12 minutes)[1][2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent film
English intertitles

Cast
  • Babe Hardy (Oliver Hardy) as Tom[1]
  • Herbert Tracy as Bob
  • Roy Byron as Mr. Cassett
  • Eloise Willard as Auntie
  • Mabel Paige as Mrs. Cassett

Release and reception

In its review of the comedy after its release in August 1914, the New York-based trade journal Motion Picture News judged it to be very funny. The publication also described the disarming effect that the main characters' childish, dim-witted personalities had on some potentially objectionable or bawdy scenes:

The adventures of Tom and Bob would be risque if they were not such simpletons and so awfully innocent of guilt in the situations which they create when they come to town to visit their aunt and get in the wrong house. As it is, what happens to them is ludicrous and will cause inordinate laughter.[4]

References
  1. "LUBIN FILMS / Back to the Farm", The Lubin Bulletin (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), August 29, 1914, p. [13]. Internet Archive, San Francisco, California. Retrieved June 28, 2020.
  2. Kawin, Bruce F. How Movies Work. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987, pp. 46-47. According to this reference, a full 1000-foot reel of film in the silent era had a maximum running time of 15 minutes. Silent films were generally projected at a "standard" speed of 16 frames per second, much slower than the 24 frames of later sound films. The few Lubin comedy shorts surviving from this period run 10-12 minutes.
  3. Louvish, Simon. "Babe: All Broken Out with the Movies", Stan and Ollie, the Roots of Comedy: The Double Life of Laurel and Hardy. New York: St. Martin's Press, Thomas Dunne Books, 2002, pp. 89-97, 481.
  4. "'Back to the Farm'", Motion Picture News (New York, N.Y.), August 29, 1914, p. 61. Internet Archive. Retrieved July 1, 2020.

See also


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