By David Sterritt
Director: Mack Sennett
Producer: Mack Sennett
With: Mabel Normand (Mabel), Mack Sennett (George), Ford Sterling (father), Gus Pixley (man), Mary Maxwell (nymph)
BW-8m.
The Water Nymph
Brief Synopsis
A couple go to the beach and play a trick on the boy's father in this silent short film.
Cast & Crew
Read More
Mack Sennett
Director
Gus Pixley
Mary Maxwell
Mabel Normand
Eddie Dillon
Ford Sterling
Film Details
Genre
Short
Comedy
Silent
Release Date
1912
Production Company
Keystone Film Company
Distribution Company
H2L Media Group
Technical Specs
Duration
8m
Synopsis
A couple go to the beach and play a trick on the boy's father in this silent short film.
Director
Mack Sennett
Director
Film Details
Genre
Short
Comedy
Silent
Release Date
1912
Production Company
Keystone Film Company
Distribution Company
H2L Media Group
Technical Specs
Duration
8m
Articles
The Water Nymph
The Water Nymph, later reissued as The Beach Flirt, earned a place in film history books by being the first production of Mack Sennett's famous Keystone Studios, a premiere comedy factory of the silent-film era. Sennett himself plays George, a dapper young man headed for a day at the seaside with his girlfriend, played by Mabel Normand, already an experienced actress and rising star when this split-reel short appeared in 1912. George knows that his father is prone to misbehavior and will flirt with bathing beauties at the beach, so he enlists Mabel in a practical joke, having her "vamp" his dad, who doesn't know it's a put-on until his wife arrives and George makes introductions all around. Ford Sterling is amusingly dandyish as the father, and Normand gets to show off her figure in a bathing suit - the old-fashioned unrevealing kind, called a "straitjacket" in an intertitle - and she does some nifty diving, too. This picture is a harbinger of the Sennett Bathing Beauties who started gracing Keystone comedies in 1915. That earns The Water Nymph another footnote in the history books.
By David Sterritt
Director: Mack Sennett
Producer: Mack Sennett
With: Mabel Normand (Mabel), Mack Sennett (George), Ford Sterling (father), Gus Pixley (man), Mary Maxwell (nymph)
BW-8m.
By David Sterritt
Director: Mack Sennett
Producer: Mack Sennett
With: Mabel Normand (Mabel), Mack Sennett (George), Ford Sterling (father), Gus Pixley (man), Mary Maxwell (nymph)
BW-8m.
The Water Nymph
The Water Nymph, later reissued as The Beach Flirt, earned a place in film history books by being the first production of Mack Sennett's famous Keystone Studios, a premiere comedy factory of the silent-film era. Sennett himself plays George, a dapper young man headed for a day at the seaside with his girlfriend, played by Mabel Normand, already an experienced actress and rising star when this split-reel short appeared in 1912. George knows that his father is prone to misbehavior and will flirt with bathing beauties at the beach, so he enlists Mabel in a practical joke, having her "vamp" his dad, who doesn't know it's a put-on until his wife arrives and George makes introductions all around. Ford Sterling is amusingly dandyish as the father, and Normand gets to show off her figure in a bathing suit - the old-fashioned unrevealing kind, called a "straitjacket" in an intertitle - and she does some nifty diving, too. This picture is a harbinger of the Sennett Bathing Beauties who started gracing Keystone comedies in 1915. That earns The Water Nymph another footnote in the history books.
By David Sterritt
Director: Mack Sennett
Producer: Mack Sennett
With: Mabel Normand (Mabel), Mack Sennett (George), Ford Sterling (father), Gus Pixley (man), Mary Maxwell (nymph)
BW-8m.
