Mabel's Dramatic Career has a postmodern tinge, starting as a rural romance and ending with a film-within-the-film that the ingenuous hero mistakes for reality. Mack (Mack Sennett) is in love with Mabel (Mabel Normand), the family's kitchen maid, but his mother objects to the relationship. When a city girl pays a visit to the household, Mack transfers his affections to her and gets his ring back from the maid, who goes into the wide world in search of a new job. The city girl quickly rejects Mack, and the maid soon gets work at the Keystone Studios, of all places. Years later, Mack sees her face on a poster, goes in to watch the movie, and reacts to the plot twists as if they were actually happening, so that when the villain pulls out a pistol, Mack pulls out his own revolver and shoots up the theater. Normand is marvelously versatile, looking goofy when she's a maid and glamorous when she's a movie actress. Sennett's mugging is as funny as it is broad. And look for Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle as a member of the audience who tries in vain to shush Mack up.
Director: Mack Sennett
Producer: Mack Sennett
With: Mabel Normand (Mabel), Mack Sennett (Mack), Alice Davenport (mother), Virginia Kirtley (city girl), Charles Avery (farmer), Ford Sterling (actor), Paul Jacobs (son), Charles Inslee (movie director), Dave Anderson (driver), William Hauber (projectionist), Edgar Kennedy (cop), Billy Gilbert (audience member), Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (audience member)
BW-14m.
By David Sterritt
