The Lost Appetite

Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran were one of the first comedy teams of the screen, very much of the Dean Martin - Jerry Lewis variety with Lyons the smooth leading man and Moran the comic goofball. In this film however they don't interact as one would consider for a screen team and are rather like just two actors in a film.

Lee Moran is Edith Roberts' country cousin (actually her brother in the American film but in the surviving British print he was made a "cousin") who is so depressed and eating less than normal than his mother sends him to visit with Edith in hopes a change of scenery will do him a world of good. Trouble is even with his "lost appetite" Moran eats like a hog and Edith and her husband Eddie Lyons are struggling to keep food on the table as it is for themselves. Visiting the family, Moran proceeds to gobble up everything in sight and even pigs out when he is Lyons' guest at a restaurant.

This is a cute little movie, not particularly clever but rather likable. This long-lost comedy short was recently discovered in the UK and was purchased by a film preservationist who now sells copies of it on ebay with all proceeds going to further film preservation.