Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies (1925) User Reviews

Who Invented The Remote Control Car?

[DKosty123 · 7/10 · 24 December 2010]

The story here is of a man named Watts who is way ahead of his time inventing the radio remote controlled electric car. The only thing is, he invents a way to power all the cars with electric radio waves & not use gasoline. The cars even seem to be able to navigate all the roads by themselves. It is a modern environmentalist paradise until everything goes wrong.

The guy who is known as Mr Gas Can tries to hire someone to sabotage all the electric cars. That is because he needs to sell gas. There is an actress named Lillian Knight who plays Watt's daughter who is being approached by Mr Gas Can to be married. Ms. Knight looks very good in the picture.

Billy Bevan & Andy Clyde, both veteran actors of silents are the main players in this one. Mack Sennett asks his players to start at a slower pace in this movie. It does start a little slow. The last half of the film has gags at a rapid pace. Not all of them work, though if the car would have I think we'd be saving a lot of gas today.

Andy's no California Carlson in this one!

[JohnHowardReid · 9/10 · 3 December 2011]

SYNOPSIS: Instead of powering cars with gasoline, a screwy inventor uses radio waves, with a series of spectacularly unfortunate results.

COMMENT: A surreal comedy that is never allowed to run out of gas. The story may change gears and even switch plots, but the general craziness continues at a fast clip from first to last. The players, especially Billy Bevan, Lillian Knight, Jack Richardson and Andre Bailey rise to the bait nobly, assisted by some remarkably elaborate production values. By the anticipated humble standards of the usual two-reeler, the lavish use of props and extras is quite extraordinary. One of director Del Lord's finest one-third hours! P.S. Hopalong Cassidy fans will be hard put to recognize this movie's weird inventor, Andy Clyde, as California Carlson.

A Lot of Good Laughs Here

[Michael_Elliott · 28 September 2012]

Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies (1925)

*** (out of 4)

Another winner from Mack Sennett has an inventor (Andy Clyde) and his side kick (Billy Bevan) working on an experiment that would have cars run off radio waves. They finally get the thing to work but this upsets an oil magnet in town who comes to the shop one night to cause trouble only to find out it's haunted (by it's really just people dressed up). SUPER-HOOPER-DYNE LIZZIES isn't the greatest movie that Sennett turned out but it's certainly one with a lot of imagination and plenty of laughs as well. Both parts of the film actually work quite well with the first portion dealing with the rivalry between the oil man and the inventors. There are some really funny moments here including the sequence where cars start running on their own all over town and this leads to a wide range of stunts. There's one pretty wild one where a horse and carriage are crossing the road and a car slams into the bad end of the carriage. I'm not sure who trained the horse but his timing was perfect. The second half turns into a horror spoof as a wide range of "monsters" show up to scare a few people and this too offers up plenty of laughs. Both Clyde and Bevan are good in their roles and manage to help keep the film moving at a very fast pace.

Silly, funny, cartoonlike stuff!

[Kiddman · 8/10 · 3 November 2004]

Of the silent comedies without an "A-List" comic in it, this is one of the better examples of the loony style of the slapstick era.

I've seen it many times, due to knowing a collector, but it's been years, so I'm a bit sketchy on the details, but the idea is that a guy comes up with the idea to get rid of expensive gasoline by using radio waves to power the country's cars. [A little background; "Super Heterodyne" was an early name for the technology of transmitting radio signals, hence the title of this spoof]

Everything seems to be going well, as cars all over town are hooked up with special radio antennas that communicate with the central transmitter. Then, all HECK breaks loose when lightning strikes the transmitter, giving WAY too much power to hundreds of cars, all at once!

The predictable yet hilarious physical comedy that ensues provides an excellent look at the kind of comedy movie audiences worldwide were enjoying in 1925!

It is awful hard to find silent movies presented properly with LIVE musical accompaniment by theatre organ, piano, or orchestra these days, but the experience, should you find a show, is WELL worth it!

silly and trivial fun

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 7 July 2006]

This film reminds me a lot of the Snub Pollard film, IT'S A GIFT. Both concern very eccentric inventors coming up with a replacement for gasoline and both having pretty disastrous results. However, the Pollard film is a lot funnier and inventive and came out two years earlier. Now I am NOT saying you shouldn't see this silent short--I just recommend you see BOTH and that the Pollard film is definitely the superior one.

Andy Clyde and Billy Bevan are working on replacing gas with an odd electrical system that sends electrical signals to cars with special aerials--enabling them to cheaply operate (apparently, gas prices were also a big concern in the 1920s). But, unfortunately, the process works too good in some cases--literally ripping the cars out from under people or making the cars zip away without their owners.

Probably the best sequence in the film shows a guy pushing his car because it ran out of gas. I won't say more, but it was a very funny and very expensive scene to film--and I found myself laughing out loud.

The film is almost 100% wild gimmicks and car stunts. It's really funny but also has practically no depth--just silly old fashioned fun.

A Mixed Bag

[Snow Leopard · 5 February 2002]

The offbeat title is perhaps a tip-off as to the nature of this uneven Mack Sennett-produced short feature. It is a mixed bag, with some material that works and other gags that do not come off at all. The story concerns an eccentric inventor and his futuristic ideas, and while it is sometimes interesting, there are also other parts of it that are barely watchable. In one sense, it is a little ahead of its time in that some of the inventions are quite creative, but at other times it is seriously dated because of its unfortunate use of stereotypes. Billy Bevan does a gag with a bunch of cars that is logistically impressive, but somewhat pointless. The gags come one after the other, but too often without a lot of purpose or timing. It might be worth seeing once if you enjoy these old-fashioned silent comedies, but there are many other such films that most viewers will find more entertaining than this one.