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William, I just returned from running some errands and checked Leo Donnelly's credits - he was a stage and vaudeville comedian turned Broadway confidante, and in the sound era did narration for shorts produced by Paramount, Vitaphone, Educational, and United, perhaps others as well. He died in 1935 ...

William Ferry wrote:Is the narrator for this series the same one who did a similar series around the same time for Vitaphone?

Hi William, here's half of the answer - Leo Donnelly is the credited narrator on the Paramount shorts:

This is not, in fact, a "Sweedie" comedy, this is AT THE OLD MAID'S CALL, a split-reeler released by Essanay on December 24, 1913, in which Wally is playing Miss Muchmoney a rich old maid who is advertising for a beau in what may be his first female impersonation for the company. Thanks f...

A slightly longer clip from a 1932 Paramount Screen Souvenirs entry, of an untitled Essanay Sweedie comedy, with Frenchman Leo White wooing the "charming" Sweedie, Wallace Beery:

https://filmlibrary.shermangrinberg.com/?s=file=421885

From a 1932 Paramount Screen Souvenir: Years before she became Buster Keaton's sister-in-law, and a decade before he became Erich von Stroheim's favorite fat man, Norma Talmadge and Hughey Mack appeared together in this fragment of a still-missing Vitagraph short: https://filmlibrary.shermangrinberg...

From a 1933 Paramount Screen Souvenirs, a tantalizing snippet from an early Keystone-Triangle release: Title card: "…This pioneer movie of the gay, goofy 90s reveals the fine art of 'sparking'…" A young couple exchanges several kisses (indications to the contrary, this is NOT "The Kis...

Harry Langdon and Luis Alberni watch in disbelief as Jack Haley attempts to be funny for the camera (1935).

Thanks, Steve, this is all very interesting - I wonder what happened to the fairly complete MAX COMES ACROSS that was shown at MOMA in 1976 - I don't recall which archive loaned the print, the titles were foreign, and it did contain what Walter Kerr considered the film's highlight, Max playing the s...

An all-too-brief clip from Max Linder's first and rarest Essanay comedy, MAX COMES ACROSS, excerpted in a 1932 Paramount Pictures Screen Souvenirs entry. A print of the film resides in a European archive and was shown during MOMA's BiCentennial Salute to American Screen Comedy, otherwise it exists b...

Harry Langdon's widow Mabel was a pack rat in the best sense - after Harry's passing, Mabel kept every document, every script, every contract, every letter written by Langdon and to Langdon. Among Harry's papers was a 1943 note from his former screenwriter and friend Arthur Ripley, which had accompa...