The best Ben Turpin’s movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Ben Turpin’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Ben Turpin.
Show of Shows
5.8/10
It's 1929. The studio gave the cinema its voice gave offered the audiences a chance to see their favorite actors and actresses from the silent screen era to see and for the first time can be heard in a gaudy, grandiose music comedy revue. But also appear actors and actresses from the first 'talkies', stars from Broadway and of course the German shepherd Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay is the host of the more than 70 well-known stars who show various acts.
Hollywood Cavalcade
6.5/10
Starting in 1913 movie director Connors discovers singer Molly Adair. As she becomes a star she marries an actor, so Connors fires them. She asks for him as director of her next film. Many silent stars shown making the transition to sound.
Make Me a Star
6.5/10
A grocery clerk, longing to become a cowboy actor, goes to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune. Unfortunately, his acting ability is non-existent.
A Night Out
5.9/10
After a visit to a pub, Charlie and Ben cause a ruckus at a posh restaurant. Charlie later finds himself in a compromising position at a hotel with the head waiter's wife.
His New Job
6/10
When one of the actors on a movie set doesn't show up, Charlie gets his chance to be on camera and replaces the actor. While waiting, he plays in a dice game and gets on many people's nerves. When he finally gets to act, he ruins his scene, accidentally destroys the set, and tears the skirt of the star of the movie.
The Champion
6.7/10
Walking along with his bulldog, Charlie finds a "good luck" horseshoe just as he passes a training camp advertising for a boxing partner "who can take a beating." After watching others lose, Charlie puts the horseshoe in his glove and wins. The trainer prepares Charlie to fight the world champion. A gambler wants Charlie to throw the fight. He and the trainer's daughter fall in love.
A Burlesque on Carmen
6/10
A gypsy seductress is sent to sway a goofy officer to allow a smuggling run.
Cracked Nuts
6/10
To impress his fiancee's aunt, a young man tries to become king in a small kingdom, but the people there have already crowned one, who has won this honor by gambling. So he plans a coup d'etat. He tries to achieve this with a bomb, but then something goes wrong...
Million Dollar Legs
6.8/10
A small country on the verge of bankruptcy is persuaded to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a means of raising money.
Our Wife
7.3/10
Oliver is making plans to marry his sweetheart Dulcy with Stan as his best man, but the plans are thwarted when Dulcy's father sees a picture of Ollie and forbids the marriage. The couple plan to elope, and run away to a Justice of the Peace. After typical Laurel and Hardy blundering, they manage to sneak the girl away from her father's house.
Saps at Sea
7.1/10
Stan and Ollie work in a horn factory. Ollie starts having violent fits every time he hears a horn. His doctor prescribes a restful sea voyage. Mayhem ensues.
Lighthouse Love
5.8/10
Two marines stationed in the Chinese port of Hang Chow decide to swear off women and join the lighthouse patrol.
Days of Thrills and Laughter
7.1/10
An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.
Starlit Days at the Lido
5.8/10
Basically this is a commercial for Hollywood's Lido Lounge and for MGM contract players. The Lido is a large watering hole; we visit one afternoon with an orchestra playing, all sorts of stars and would-be stars sitting at tables near the pool alongside paying customers, and bathing beauties parading and diving. The Lido's manager, Reggy Denny, introduces the stars in the audience. He's sometimes interrupted by someone who does a bit, sings a song, or otherwise entertains: most of these are novelty acts. By the end, everyone's having a swell time.
The Love Parade
7/10
The queen of mythical Sylvania marries a courtier, who finds his new life unsatisfying.
The Dare-Devil
6.1/10
The movie makers are filming the next installment of the western serial "Get Your Man". The movie's leading man wants his stunt double to do the next dangerous stunt. Purely by accident, a hapless, cross-eyed aspiring actor named Joe Magee ends up doing the stunt perfectly. He ends up doing dangerous stunt after stunt, all by accident, that fit the movie so perfectly that the movie's leading lady wants him in the picture. The exasperated director finds that getting Joe to do the stunts on command is an entirely different story.
The Golden Age of Comedy
7.1/10
A compilation featuring comedic stars of the silent era including Will Rogers, Laurel and Hardy, and the Keystone Cops.
The Slappiest Days of Our Lives
3.8/10
Laurel is a Scottish reporter suspected of being a spy by police detective James Finlayson. Although trailed by the latter, Stan, who is reporting on the movie world, manages to be hired by Mack Sennett. He makes his debut in Nevada, in the middle of gold diggers. After managing to clear his name he becomes, with Oliver Hardy, a big comedy star.
That Night
There is harmony in The Café until it is accidentally discovered that lovely Mary has had a fortune left her, whereupon Beery, the proprietor, Trask and Murray, two entertainers, all race to her home with the idea of marrying her.
Broke in China
5.7/10
Donald Drake, a deep sea gondolier ex soda jerk, arrives at the All Nation Cafe in Shanghai. The proprietor believes he's a penniless ne'er-do-well - which he is - but he unexpectedly comes into a small windfall. So the proprietor orders slightly rough around the edges Maud and Mollie, two of his American good time girls working their way around the world, to get him to spend all his money while there. As Donald ends up telling the two good time girls his life story - most specifically about the blonde he let slip through his fingers, she who was the love of his life - a few revelations and the errant coin he left at the roulette wheel betting table change his life.
