The Gusher (1913) User Reviews

A Mabel Normand short, though you really don't get that much Mabel

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 3 October 2009]

You can tell that this is an early Keystone comedy, as it lacks the polish and style of a later comedy. Instead, you have a leading man and a villain both dressed up with goofy facial hair and making goofy faces. As for the lady who would soon become a huge star, Mabel Normand, she's delegated mostly to just standing around and watching the action take place.

The villain and his confederate sell Mabel's fiancé some seemingly worthless oil land by tricking him. However, when oil IS found on the land, the villain heartlessly lights the property ablaze--at which point there's a lot of punching and kicking and shooting--the usual Keystone type of violence.

As far as the humor goes, this ain't deep. Also, for fans of Miss Norman, she really isn't given much chance to show her acting talents. This is odd, since this film was bundled on a DVD with Normand's EXTRA GIRL--you'd think they'd have included a bonus film that featured the star more prominently.

Overall, harmless but not especially funny.

Mabel showed she was a natural comic in this early Sennett short

[kidboots · 6/10 · 18 July 2008]

When Mack Sennett formed Keystone in 1912 he took Mabel Normand with him. The studio was built in Edendale near down-town Los Angeles. "The Gusher" is one of the many, many movies he made at this time.

Mabel has two suitors - an oily con man, whom she mocks in a very funny scene where she is shown twiddling a fake moustache and making her feelings very clearly felt. Even in this early comedy her natural fun comes through. The one she really loves is clumsy yokel Ford Sterling, who is determined to buy an oil well that the con man has for sale. The conman gets a local fellow to pour oil over the property. Ford falls for it and buys it - Mabel and he are to be married. Then the fellow confesses that it was just a scam - there was no oil. Of course, the next minute oil really is discovered and Ford and Mabel are over-joyed. Just as they are about to get married the conman comes back on the scene. He throws a lighted match on the oil and the screen spectacularly erupts in a crimson fire ball. Everyone then gets in on the act - there are all the townsfolk, Mabel in her wedding veil, the Keystone Cops make a brief appearance, Mabel has to fend off the con- man's oily advances and Ford has to stop falling over his own feet.

The film ends on a positive note. The fire is still polluting the skies but Ford has proved he is a man and not a mouse by fighting the conman and protecting Mabel's honour.

Recommended.

This is What Most People Think Keystones Are

[boblipton · 5/10 · 3 June 2018]

Keystone had been in California for almost a year before Sennett shot a one-reeler set in the oil fields. Mabel and Ford Sterling will get married as soon as he is an oil king, so when Charles Inslee dumps some crude oil on the mud he owns, he quickly gets Ford to borrow money to buy the dud well. When Inslee goes after Mabel, Ford hits him with a pipe, which falls to the ground, and triggers a the titular gusher. But even as the lovers are wed, Inslee will have his revenge!

This is one of those Keystone shorts shot on location to take advantage of local conditions, including lots of mud for Sterling and the Keystone Kops (including Sennett, Mack Swain, and Edgar Kennedy) to fall down in, and an oil well fire. Like most of the early "stolen shot" shorts, like A MUDDY ROMANCE and COHEN SAVES THE FLAG, it's improvised and rough, the stereotype of what most people think of as Keystone comedies.

A good example of Mabel in her early film days

[AlsExGal · 7/10 · 27 March 2017]

The two-reel short, "The Gusher", is one of 64 short comedy films Mabel Normand cranked out in 1913. This frantic pace of comic filmmaking, along with the constant injuries before the days of stuntmen, is among the reasons that so many of the early silent comics had substance abuse problems - they were pretty much all dealing with working constantly and while injured. The short itself is a good example of Keystone comedy in the teens - lots of pants-kicking comedy, and of course the Keystone cops show up at the end to make a bad situation worse. The film is about Mabel Normand choosing one beau over another and the rejected beau attempting to cheat the winner out of his money by selling him an alleged "gusher" of an oil well.

A good burlesque offering

[deickemeyer · 22 January 2018]

In which Ford Sterling goes into the oil business and gets hold of a planted proposition. A good burlesque offering, winding up with a big fire in the oil districts. A pleasing number. - The Moving Picture World, December 13, 1913