The Dumb-Bell

Dumb-Bell, The (1922)

** (out of 4)

A small-time movie studio keeps falling behind schedule because the director can't keep his cool. He's constantly going crazy causing the film to fall behind schedule but the managers are scared to fire him so they tell an actor ('Snub' Pollard) that he can direct the film as long as he fires the guy. I'm sure directors and producers would sit around and tell a story like this and they'd find it to be insanely funny but whatever was going on in the writers head failed to make it to the screen because this really isn't all that funny. Pollard has never really worked for me as I usually find him rather tiresome and unfunny and that's part of the problem here but blaming the entire film on him would be a mistake. Chase, the director, must also take some of the blame because he really never makes anything here too funny. The film just strikes me as an inside joke that a few people are going to laugh at but everyone else will just sit there bore.