Stronger than Sherlock Holmes (1913)

Plot Summary (1)

Before he made the landmark epic CABIRIA and launched the strongman Maciste as a movie phenomenon in Italy, Italian filmmaker Giovanni Pastrone directed this imaginative comic short. The title translates to "Stronger Than Sherlock Holmes" and the title is the only place that Arthur Conan Doyle's characters makes an appearance. Emilio Vardannes stars as an everyman who dreams he is an heroic cop on the trail of a criminal. Filled with trick photography, wild sight gags and slapstick action, the pursuit leaves the world of reality to not just walk on water but backflip across the surface of lake and crazy physicality of the final madcap battle defies all law of physics. The wacky comic violence anticipates the cartoon logic of the animated Looney Tunes shorts that arrived much later. - Sean Axmaker [Print courtesy of the EYE Filmmuseum. ]

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