Century Film Project

This is a Max Linder short with a familiar structure of anticipation leading to ruin. Max has been invited to visit a nice home and must dress formally, but each hat he attempts to wear for the occasion gets destroyed.

The movie begins with Max opening a letter and giving his usual indications of happiness and excitement. But, a finicky note creeps in as Max prepares to go out – he seems to be detecting bits of dust or hair on everything, and he won’t go out until he is perfect. He nearly topples a vase from a tall pedestal, so busy is he checking and re-checking himself in the mirror as he goes out the door. On the street, he walks past a workman carrying a door. The man stops to light a cigarette, clumsily letting the door topple down on Max! He is unhurt, but his fancy top hat has been crushed. He goes to a local hatter and purchases a replacement, after trying on first a hat that is too large and then one that is too small. This time, he only makes it a short distance before a cat leaps down from a nearby balcony, not just crushing the hat but leaping right through it so Max can put his arm through it. He returns to the hatter and buys a second replacement. The hatter, perhaps jokingly, offers to let him keep his two ruined top hats. Now he hails a taxi, only to have the hat knocked off as the driver pulls up. Once again, he buys a new hat, and once again the hatter offers him his old ones back. This time, however, he leaves the hat in its box until he arrives at his destination – the only way to be sure it will survive. He refuses to let the servant take it, but then he is unable to find a good place to put it while he waits for his host, so he puts it on the floor. Then the family dog walks up and lifts its leg…And just as Max I dealing with that catastrophe, in comes the family he is visiting. The old gentleman thinks the hat is for him, and puts it on…Suffice to say that Max is given to understand that he won’t be welcome at this house again.

I was pretty surprised by the “vulgar” humor of the dog piddling in the hat at the end, but it certainly raised the stakes on this very simple little short. The version I watched lacked intertitles, so we didn’t know who he was going to visit, but one version in French says he is visiting future in-laws (the usual wealthy parents of a girl Max hopes to marry), and that works well with the story. But, we don’t really need to know. All we know is that it is an important social occasion and Max wants to look his best, but events conspire to keep that from happening. Linder adds a lot of little bits of business that keep the audience engaged through this relatively redundant set of situations. First, there is his excessive fastidiousness at the mirror. Then, when he speaks to the hatter, he keeps miming out the incidents that have caused the wreck of his hats. He shows us that he won’t put his hat on the end table at the house by wiping it with his finger and showing himself rubbing up bits of dust. It’s little actions like these that give his character so much interest, even in very simple storylines.

Director: Max Linder

Camera: Unknown

Starring: Max Linder

Run Time: 8 Min, 45 secs

You can watch it for free: here (incomplete, no music, best I could find on the Internet).