This wonderfully weird short comedy features some of Charley Bowers's strangest conceptions, plus many other amusing gags and an interesting combination of material that also includes Lowell Thomas. "It's A Bird" is as surreal as anything that Bowers did, and it is also very good entertainment.
While part of the story is to some degree a device to set up the appearance and the activities of the bizarre "metal eating bird", the whole thing works well. It starts with Charley having a chat on the radio with Lowell Thomas, and then it moves into a Chaplin-style sequence of a resourceful Charley working in a junkyard. This whole stretch is very good, and the sequence with the policeman on the park bench is particularly funny - and all this is just for openers.
When Charley hears about the bird, he first constructs a Keatonesque kind of contraption for his expedition, and then he confronts his quarry. The last part reprises and elaborates upon some of the best gags from Charley's silent features "Egged On" and "Say Ah-h!". It's the kind of imaginative sequence that can be watched numerous times without getting bored with it.
How fortunate it is that a few more of these Charley Bowers features can now be seen. This surreal comedy is particularly enjoyable.
While part of the story is to some degree a device to set up the appearance and the activities of the bizarre "metal eating bird", the whole thing works well. It starts with Charley having a chat on the radio with Lowell Thomas, and then it moves into a Chaplin-style sequence of a resourceful Charley working in a junkyard. This whole stretch is very good, and the sequence with the policeman on the park bench is particularly funny - and all this is just for openers.
When Charley hears about the bird, he first constructs a Keatonesque kind of contraption for his expedition, and then he confronts his quarry. The last part reprises and elaborates upon some of the best gags from Charley's silent features "Egged On" and "Say Ah-h!". It's the kind of imaginative sequence that can be watched numerous times without getting bored with it.
How fortunate it is that a few more of these Charley Bowers features can now be seen. This surreal comedy is particularly enjoyable.