Oliver Hardy plays the heavy in this slapstick short to star clown Larry Semon, who's most famous for making arguably the worst silent film of all time, the 1925 "The Wizard of Oz." "The Rent Collector," thankfully, is much better; surprisingly, I thought it was the funniest short in the Pordenone Silent Film Festival's "Laurel or Hardy" program. Besides the comedy sometimes resulting in laughs, it also helps that this, unlike Semon's later feature-length film, doesn't spew duck vomit (that's a reference to a duck puking on Semon in the movie) on a classic children's book or base much of its supposed humor on cruel racial stereotypes (albeit, that may be due to the entire cast in this one being almost as white as Semon's grotesque makeup).
The gag of the woman falling into a pot hole after Semon lays his jacket over it was amusing, as was him and the policeman both ignoring her drowning to get into a chase. There's some good exploitation of expected and unexpected gags later, with a couple bits of business involving knives being obvious, whereas those with cars are less so. The gags in general tend to be fairly elaborate and not as broad as in some other slapstick shorts, although the violence remains cartoon level, and the entire thing devolves into nonsensical running around in the end. And, I have no idea why a barber shop is underneath a street drain; does the place get flooded every time it rains, or what. But, then, that raises the question of why Hardy wants a barber to shave his painted-on beard in the first place. Logic is but a pratfall here.
