The Man in the Silk Hat

When I first went to see this film at the Public Theater in NYC about 20 years ago I knew three things about Max Linder: 1) that he was the first comic star of the movies, predating Chaplin; 2) that he made some films in the U.S., but they weren't terribly successful; and 3) after he returned to France, Linder and his young wife died together in a suicide pact. Beyond these basic details I knew very little, and I'd never seen any of Linder's movies at the time. This documentary proved to be a revelation in several respects, first in demonstrating that Max Linder was a gifted, charming performer whose work can still entertain audiences today, but also in underscoring how little is known about a multi-talented man who was once world-famous but who now survives as something of a ghost: a name cited in most film histories but rarely discussed in any detail, a man whose work is compared to Chaplin's but almost never publicly screened.

The Man in the Silk Hat was assembled by Maud Linder, Max's daughter, who was raised by her maternal grandparents and told very little about her father when she was growing up. She narrates the film and begins with images from a family album, expressing bewilderment as to why this man and his films were so quickly forgotten. The details of Max's early life are illustrated with a combination of old photographs, actuality footage, and excerpts from Max's movies, culminating in a fascinating montage illustrating the Parisian theater scene at the turn of the century, when Max's career began. We catch brief glimpses of Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet, Coquelin as Cyrano De Bergerac, and other stage greats. Max also took to the stage, but it wasn't until he began making movies, along about 1905, that he found his true calling. The excerpts from Max's early films are wonderful, sometimes suggesting the influence of the trick films of Georges Méliès and Ferdinand Zecca. We see Max taking a bath in a public hallway, dogs chasing Max across a rooftop, horses loping through a living room, furniture coming to life and dancing, animated shoes, stilt-walkers wearing grotesque masks, and other startling images. But the heart of Max Linder's appeal lay not in special effects but in his own screen charisma. One of the best scenes in this compilation features Max and a pretty young lady riding together in the same carriage on a train; he speaks only French, and she speaks only English, but their wordless flirtation makes for a genuinely sweet, moving sequence, and a winning example of silent cinema reduced to its essence.

As the film rolls along, however, we encounter disturbing lapses in the narrative. It's understandable that Maud Linder might lack crucial information about her father, but for viewers struggling to understand what went so wrong in his life it's puzzling. The biggest lapse comes when the subject turns to Max's experiences during the First World War. Ms. Linder tells us only that her father enlisted in the army immediately and went to the front, but was brought back in a state near death weeks later; he subsequently recovered and resumed his film career. The war is not mentioned again, but the trauma obviously had a terrible impact on Max's psyche and on the course of his life. According to one source, Max was the victim of a mustard gas attack, while according to another he caught pneumonia standing in icy water under a bridge for hours, hiding from German soldiers. By all accounts, Max suffered from severe depression the rest of his life, but in her narration Maud Linder neither clarifies what happened (if indeed she knew) nor mentions the psychological damage.

In any event, Max Linder's later years were troubled. During the early 1920s he worked in Hollywood, where he became friends with Chaplin and made three feature films, but it seems that they weren't very successful at the U.S. box office; unfortunately, this subject is not examined. However, a great sequence from one of the films, Seven Years Bad Luck, is excerpted here: i.e. the immortal "mirror routine," filmed previously by Chaplin and later re-used by Charley Chase, The Marx Brothers, Lucille Ball, etc. Linder's version may well be the best of them all. But the story of his life ends with shocking suddenness, as our narrator announces with no preamble that Max Linder and his young wife killed themselves quite suddenly one day in October 1925. At the very end of this film Maud Linder tells us that there seemed to be no explanation for the tragedy and that she has never sought one. As an individual affected by a family tragedy she has our sympathy, yet as a documentary filmmaker she leaves us bewildered. As I mentioned up top I already knew how the story would end when I went to see this film with an audience, but I still remember the gasp of surprise from some of my fellow viewers when this news was announced. When the lights came up in the theater, people looked dazed. While I wouldn't expect Max Linder's daughter to pry extensively into the dark details of her parents' deaths, or to speculate at length about what led to the decision, nonetheless the ending of her film leaves unprepared viewers shocked and confused. But perhaps that was the intention.

Despite its omissions and elisions, this film stands as the best source of information about Max Linder and one of the best sources of footage from his delightful films. The Man in the Silk Hat is a must for fans of silent comedy. And here's hoping that a follow-up might be produced some day, with more footage and more information about this fascinating man.