Marcel Perez

[David Denton]

I just saw YOU'RE NEXT (at Cinecon), a Jester comedy from 1919 with Marcel Perez and Dorothy Earle (spelled Earl in the film). The opening credits went by very fast, could not read them. Very clever comedy. He's been kicked out of his rooming house and is literally living in the street, all his furniture set up, etc. Taken to the police station after causing traffic problems, gets his own cell, somehow helps the other prisoners escape and gets kicked out of jail. Here he meets Dorothy Earle ( who is very cute, in a Constance Talmadge way). She gets work as a movie actress and he as a property man. You can guess the shenanigans from there. Lots of backstage action.Has anyone else seen this? Does anyone (Steve?) know anything about Jester? who else might have been working there at the time? William Seiter had directed Perez there in 1918, Aubrey Kennedy was a writer there, possibly they were still there, playing a part in the film-making scenes. One of the cops was quite large, maybe like Dan Russell or Russ Powell?

Thank, David

[Steve Massa]

Hi David - That print of YOU'RE NEXT is one that Rob Stone, Ben Model and I turned up at LOC. Jester was the comedy unit put together by producer William Steiner to star Perez, and the shorts were directed by Perez and William Seiter (in 1918). Most of the Jesters were shot in Cliffside, New Jersey, at what had been Kalem's Cliffside Park Studio, and is the studio in YOU'RE NEXT (in late 1918 the company spent a few months in San Antonio, Texas and shot a few western comedies such as THE TENDERFOOT ('19) and IN THE WILD WEST ('19) there). Besides Seiter and Aubrey Kennedy, Thomas C. Reagan (who had worked at Vim with Pokes & Jabbs) was the assistant director and appeared in some of the comedies (Bob Birchard has Reagan's photos which include some Jester shots). In 1918 Steiner announced he was extending Jester to include the comics Jimmy Aubrey and Pearl Sheppard. A lobby card exists for THE FATAL FLOWER, a Jester that stars Aubrey, but that seemed to be short-lived, and for the most part it was only the Twede-Dan Comedies.

The large cop you're referring to is Jean Pierre Pierard, who was better known as Pierre Collosse. He had been a wrestler and film actor in Europe as Le Collosse, and on coming to America in 1915 began appearing in films on the east coast. Besides being a regular in Perez's Jester and Reelcraft comedies, he also appeared in the 1915 Gaumont comedy ZABLIZTY'S WATERLOO, Hughie Mack's ROMANCE AND ROUGHHOUSE ('16), the east coast Swanson feature MANHANDLED ('24) and at the very end of Charley Bower's MANY A SLIP ('27).

Ben and I have shown YOU'RE NEXT a couple of times in the last year in the New York area. It's great that it ended up in the Cinecon schedule. There are number of Perez's other American comedies around - LOC, MoMA, Eastman House, and Eye Film all have some. Of course they're fairly difficult to see, but his European comedies in which he starred as Robinet (under the name of Marcel Fabre) have started turning up online at Europa Film Treasures and youtube.

Now for a shameless plug - I wrote a article on Perez's life and career for Slapstick magazine about ten years ago. I recently updated it and added a lot of new info for my upcoming book LADIES, LAME BRAINS AND LUNATICS: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE FORGOTTEN OF SILENT COMEDY. I just turned in the manuscript last week to Bear Manor so it should be out sometime early in the new year. Besides Perez it has pieces on silent comedy teams, Alice Howell, Charles Parrott's career as a director, Gale Henry, Billie Ritchie, Fay Tincher, Our Gang and it's forerunners and followers, Max Linder in America, Marie Dressler, Al St John, Max Davidson and his screen family, George Rowe and many more. Plus over 200 rare photographs from the collections of Sam Gill, Robert Arkus, Bob Birchard, Louie Despres, Jim Kerkhoff, Cole Johnson, Bruce Lawton, and yours truely.

[Frank Flood]

Good news, Steve. We'll be looking forward to it.

Frank

[Andrew Sholl]

Hang on. Dorothy Earle was making pictures with Marcel Perez in 1919 but he discovered her two years later in 1921?

NY Evening Telegram, 30 March 1921

[Steve Massa]

Hi Andrew - I've seen this Dorothy Earle piece before and it looks like it's pretty mostly puff. By 1921 they were married and had a one year-old son (Marcel Jr.). It seems that they met while he was doing the Jesters in New Jersey, probably late in 1918 as Dorothy takes over as his leading lady in the films in 1919. Dorothy's real name was Esther Elmendorf (gulp), and Perez's leading lady up until Dorothy's arrival was his first wife Nilde Baracchi - who had come with him from Europe where she had been Robinette in his Robinet comedies. Like Perez she kept changing her name, and worked in his Eagle Films as Babette Perez, and in the Jesters as Nilde Babette. Not sure what was going on behind the scenes - as it appears one day that Nilde went back to Europe and Dorothy is leading lady.