A Submarine Pirate

A Submarine Pirate (1915)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

A dimwitted waiter (Syd Chaplin) overhears a couple men talking about using a submarine to rob a ship carrying gold so he decides to buy an outfit and get on board the sub to try and do the thing himself. A SUBMARINE PIRATE really doesn't work too well as a comedy but I think film buffs are going to be entertained simply by how much this thing tries to do. This was Mack Sennett's first film for Triange Pictures so perhaps this explains why this seems to have a much bigger budget and more plot than the type of films he was turning out at Keystone. For 1915 this has a pretty detailed plot as we get all sorts of stuff going on but the most shocking thing is that this appeared to have been shot on a real sub. I thought some of these scenes were really brought to life by Chaplin including one where we see him running around on the front of the sub. We also get a few moments in the sub, which might not be funny but it's still interesting to see. Chaplin, as you'd expect, works best early on when he's playing the moron waiter and I think we get some funny jokes here including one bit where he pretty much has everything that belongs on the table in his pants and coat. At 24-minutes the film doesn't have enough laughs to make it a complete success but film buffs should enjoy it.