Seven Years Bad Luck

I never heard of Max Linder before--a jaunty little Frenchman with a mustache, cane and top hat, a wealthy man with servants, who reacts when his full-length mirror is inadvertently broken by his hired help. He then goes to extremes to avoid seven years of bad luck.

While the rest of the plot is thin on inspiration, it does prove that SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK is a watchable little silent film with a frisky score by Ralph Israel that perfectly fits the on screen action.

Numerous gags involve plenty of acrobatic stunts aboard a train, an escape from the cops by making himself comfortable inside a lion's den, pretending to be the stationmaster at a train station and wooing the agent's daughter, and a footchase aboard the running train to escape being a stowaway without a ticket.

Not a bad comedy for 1921, it's one of a hundred Max Linder films that have survived, out of some 400. Gassed during World War I, Max's health problems interfered with his budding career. He committed suicide in 1925 in a pact with his wife when the public response to his films was only lukewarm. TCM showed a decent print of this one, along with a couple of other much less impressive shorts.

To me, this movie was highly reminiscent of a Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton film, though with fewer laughs. Now this ISN'T to say it wasn't funny or was a bad film--but the number and intensity of the laughs was lower than other similar films. And the reason it looked a lot like a film by these other comedians is that Max Linder originated so many of the comedy routines we took for granted in films by later comedians--such as the mirror gag that was copied in DUCK SOUP (1933). Also, in the scenes where Max steps on and off the train so acrobatically are exactly the sort of thing I would expect Keaton or perhaps Chaplin to do. Chaplin himself credits much of his success to things he learned by watching early Linder films, though by the time he made it to Hollywood, Linder's film apparently lost a lot of their frenetic spark.

This film ostensibly is about Max breaking a mirror and trying to avoid bad luck--though everything he did only made things worse. While a promising premise, the movie really seemed to lose direction and the original plot is seldom in evidence later in the film. Some very good and interesting moments, but a lackluster and vague plot didn't help this movie. Still, it is nice to see Linder in a full-length film and it is well worth seeing for its finer moments. to highlight Linder's talents.

The first of three feature-length movies Max Linder made during his second stay in Hollywood sees his luck taking a turn for the worse after he breaks a mirror. An uneven comedy that is wildly funny at times, but which misfires just as often. The brilliantly choreographed 'human mirror' gag was later copied by the Marx Brothers. The fact their their routine is held up as an example of comic genius while Linder's version is largely forgotten pretty much typifies the Frenchman's unfortunate status as one of cinema's overlooked geniuses.

Seven Years Bad Luck is an excellent comedy written, directed and starring an excellent comedian named Max Linder. Though not particularly well remembered today, this movie proves that Linder deserves all the reputation he can get. I found two scenes to be especially funny -- "the mirror routine," in which a tired Max's cook appears to be his mirror image, and the sequence in which Max enters a lion's cage in an attempt to escape from a group of furious cops.

At the time Linder made this feature in Hollywood, he hadn't been very active in the movie-business because of depressions and fading health, and Seven Years Bad Luck was, despite promising reviews, not a hit and was soon forgotten. Fortunately, the movie is now available on DVD from Image Entertainment, accompanied by a good musical score composed by Robert Israel.

Seven Years Bad Luck definitively gets a 10 out of 10 from me, for its brilliant gags which are all so decently performed. A must-see!

Thanks to the renewed interest in silent films brought about by video technology, a whole new generation is being introduced to the timeless comedy of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and others. But every time you laugh at their antics you should thank Max Linder the French comedian who did it all first.

Max began his film career in 1907 and by 1909 was writing, directing, and starring in his own films built around his character of the dapper dandy dressed in spats and silk top hat. By 1914 he was the highest paid entertainer in the world and had made over 350 films. Mack Sennett and Keystone were just underway and Chaplin had just arrived in America. Then World War I broke out. Max enlisted and was seriously wounded three times. By the time he had sufficiently recovered the world had changed. Chaplin was now the king of comedy having with full acknowledgement borrowed many of Max's gestures and routines. Max was flattered and came to the U. S. in 1917 to make a few short films before going back to France. He returned in 1921, bought a house in Hollywood, and made three feature films. These did not do well at the time and an increasingly depressed Max went back to France where he and his wife committed suicide in 1925. He was 42.

Out of his vast output, only a small fraction have survived. While this DVD is unlikely to bring about a Max Linder revival, it does allow us to see his most famous feature film, an abridged version of another, and some of his pre-war work in France when Max was at the peak of his popularity. SEVEN YEAR'S BAD LUCK (1921) contains the famous broken mirror routine of Max standing before someone else who mimics his actions. This gag was reused by the Marx Brothers in DUCK SOUP and by Lucille Ball and many others. The excerpt from BE MY WIFE (also 1921) has Max staging a fight with himself from behind a curtain. The condition of the prints used for this DVD are pretty good but not great and are probably the best available without the funding for a full scale restoration.

Nevertheless it's great to see Max back up on the screen once again. If you enjoy silent screen comedy then you owe it to yourself to check this disc out and watch the "Professor", as Chaplin called him, show us how it's done. Max Linder was the first comedy superstar and influenced all who came after him from Chaplin to the look of John Astin on THE ADDAMS FAMILY. Thanks to David Shepard and Film Preservation Associates for making these long unseen treasures available. The musical accompaniment by Robert Israel ranging from small orchestra to Fotoplayer (a sort of one man band) is first rate as usual...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.