I didn’t plan on writing another post so soon, having just finished a weighty one two days ago. But I can’t let a weekend slip by without telling you about Max Linder. It’s my obligation.
You may know the name. Linder was a Frenchman; a stage comic who entered motion pictures before 1910, becoming a director, screenwriter and big, big star. He established the model his successors would follow: a stock character, distinctively his own, returning in film after film.
Linder’s “Max” is typically well-off. He’s inventive and clever, though not always practical. He drinks and womanizes. He makes his own messes, and arguably, his greatest single skill is getting out of them. It’s our pleasure to watch him do this. Linder was, to quote Charlie Chaplin, “the master.”
The master didn’t make many feature films. Linder’s life, which ended in 1925, was terribly tragic—not least because he died in the middle of the greatest decade in the history of filmed comedy. Max would have made it greater. I’ve written that Roscoe Arbuckle, had he been allowed to continue working, would have been silent comedy’s “fourth genius,” alongside Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd; after watching Seven Years Bad Luck, I think Linder could have been the fifth.
