Hallroom Boys in "Conjuror James"

[Thomas Reeder]

Wow those are some rough looking screen grabs : )

They may be rough, but you have to admit they're a nice shade of blue.

Thanks for what sounds like a positive ID, given the title and the brief synopsis you've provided. Good luck with the filmography, and perhaps you'll post it here some day unless you have grander plans for it.

[Frank Flood]

ONE SPOOKY NIGHT with Sid Smith was being played in theaters in 1928 or thereabouts, courtesey of William Pizor. A company called Capital (or Capitol) Productions had some involvement with these films. My guess is that this was the name of a Pizor company, because the company's name pops up in connection with films with Fred Parker and Teddy Reavis (other Pizor "stars").

Frank

[Steve Massa]

Another Pizor "comedy star" (the term is used loosely) was Art Hammond, who was sort of a Lloyd Hamilton rip-off. He later became an assistant director at Monogram in the 1940s.

Steve

[Brent Walker]

Oh and Brent could I get some jpegs of your Stars & stripes images as I am really trying to put all of these Hallroom Boys in some sort of accurate list since I have lots of them......Speaking of Sid Smith is anyone familiar with the title in the final image? One Spooky Knight? its a 2 reeler that also stars the directors brother Sherry Tansey and Wanda Sibbold - I don't think any of the info on imdb is correct regarding this title.

Dino, I will try to post a jpg of STARS AND STRIPES, the shot involves Sid and "Gil Wells" being towed by a dog in a wagon.

Re: the Pizor ONE SPOOKY NIGHT (which I've seen in 16mm in the Packard Collection at UCLA), imdb doesn't seem to list that or any of the Sid Smith Pizors. There was a separate Mack Sennett film called ONE SPOOKY NIGHT with Billy Bevan, from 1924, coincidentally around the time Sid Smith was at Sennett but he's not in the film. The Pizor ONE SPOOKY NIGHT was released in 1928, and probably made in 1927 or early 28 (since he died in July of that year).

[Richard M Roberts]

Oh and Brent could I get some jpegs of your Stars & stripes images as I am really trying to put all of these Hallroom Boys in some sort of accurate list since I have lots of them......Speaking of Sid Smith is anyone familiar with the title in the final image? One Spooky Knight? its a 2 reeler that also stars the directors brother Sherry Tansey and Wanda Sibbold - I don't think any of the info on imdb is correct regarding this title.

Dino, I will try to post a jpg of STARS AND STRIPES, the shot involves Sid and "Gil Wells" being towed by a dog in a wagon.

Re: the Pizor ONE SPOOKY NIGHT (which I've seen in 16mm in the Packard Collection at UCLA), imdb doesn't seem to list that or any of the Sid Smith Pizors. There was a separate Mack Sennett film called ONE SPOOKY NIGHT with Billy Bevan, from 1924, coincidentally around the time Sid Smith was at Sennett but he's not in the film. The Pizor ONE SPOOKY NIGHT was released in 1928, and probably made in 1927 or early 28 (since he died in July of that year).

I've got prints of ONE SPOOKY NIGHT and five or six of the other Pizor Sid Smiths. Thats the one that opens with the neat footage of Sid Smith and his family driving over the dam right? Even the Weiss Brothers thought William Pizor was cheap. I have one that pairs Smith with Teddy Reavis called HEAVE-HO! that is rather odd, it begins as a Sid Smith comedy, then she really takes over the film. I've always wondered if this was the last film Sid Smith was working on when he died and it was finished wth Reavis filling out the majority of the footage, or whether Pizor was just using Smith to build up Reavis as a star. There is not a lot of info on these Smith comedies, but William Pizor and Robert Tansey were tied up with the Weiss Brothers at the time producing all of these various short comedy series, under various company names, Capital was one of those names, along with Clarion Photoplays, Artclass, etc., all dummy companies the Weiss's or Pizor was using for whatever goofy business reasons. But these films still have an amazing survival rate, whatever their low-budget origins were.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Thomas Reeder]

There was an earlier Hallroom boys comedy made by the Sterling Motion Picture Corp. in 1915 titled The Fox Trot Craze that I'd forgotten about, but just stumbled across in my notes. In this one the characters are named Percy and Harold. My synopis and some contemporary comments follow:

The Fox Trot Craze
Sterling Motion Picture Corp./Universal
Released: 02/18/1915 Thursday
no copyright entry – 1 reel
Cast: Ernest Shields, Arthur Tavares, Emma Clifton
Hall room boys Harold (Tavares) and Percy (Shields) decide to attend the hotel’s dance. They possess a single suit each; Harold sends his out for pressing, while Percy presses his own. Percy manages to burn a hole in the seat of the suit’s pants, so he steals Harold’s suit as it is being returned by the bellboy. Harold grows impatient waiting for his suit and sneaks into the hall in his underwear for a look. He learns of the theft and, covering himself with a portiere, heads for the ballroom. Meanwhile, Percy has managed to set himself smoldering on a discarded cigarette butt, and seeks seclusion in an out of the way corner to remove the suit and douse the fire. Harold arrives and the two grapple over the suit, both losing their coverings during the fight. Retreating in their underwear, they both swear off dancing and ballrooms.
“This is mildly amusing, but needs more plot...” (Moving Picture World, February 20, 1915, p. 1140)
“No plot.” (Variety, February 1915)

[Brent Walker]

Thomas, thanks for posting this. Sterling Comedies frequently and shamelessly remade Keystones to the letter, particularly after Ford Sterling and Henry Lehrman left the brand. In this case, this one sounds like a redo of the 1912 Biograph THE TRAGEDY OF A DRESS SUIT, which had just come out from Keystone in December 1914 in reworked form as FATTY'S MAGIC PANTS (and would later be incorporated into the second reel of THE WAITER'S BALL).

It sounds like they were trading on the "Hall room boys" comic as colloquial here, as I doubt it was an officially licensed use of the characters (I wonder why they boldly used Percy but not Ferdie?).