The Belles of Liberty

This L-KO two-reeler survives in a truncated Pathescope print, with about five minutes cut out. Never mind, it's just the plot, explaining how the "Famous L-KO Beauty Girls (mostly Eva Novak and and Carolyne Wright), being pursued by Monty Banks, Rube Miller and other L-KO clowns, get from a bond rally to being chased by cops while some of them get married. Something had to be cut out, and the folks at Pathe's show-at-home division apparently decided that people would like to see the the comic stuntwork.

And that stuntwork is impressive, with people clambering from a car to a trolley and back again, while the cops are in pursuit of them, with half on top of a paddy wagon. It may strike the non-expert that this looks like the sort of thing that Mack Sennett was doing, but by this point, Sennett's comedies were a lot less chaotic in construction. Henry Lehrman (the company's full name was "Lehrman-Knockout") was gone from the company that this time; it was in the hands of Universal, and they wanted cheaply produced comedies. Nonetheless, the staging off the big chase could not have been inexpensive.

So that's what survives: a first half that was clearly meant to hype War Bonds and a fine chase. I'd like the full movie, but given what survives of it, I've seen worse: much worse.

By the way, the performer listed as "Frenchy Bianchi" in the IMDb is actually Monty Banks.