There It Is (1928)

Zany and hilarious, There It Is! is a wild Charley Bowers short featuring his signature stop-motion animation. It concerns a wealthy household plagued by a "Fuzz-Faced Phantom", an entity that knocks people down, floats through walls, and shoots rams out of the sky. They call on Scotland yard for help, only this is literally a fenced square yard in Scotland where men in kilts parade around in circles waiting to be called up. You must see it to believe it. This film was screened at Capitolfest in 2017.

When a mysterious figure appears to cause a series of disruptions at the Frisbie Home in New York, word goes out to Scotland Yard that the Fuzz-Faced Phantom is at work. Soon, Charley MacNeesha and his assistant MacGregor are sent across the ocean to investigate. But even as they arrive at the home, a new series of weird events begins: full-grown chickens hatch from eggs, pots float across rooms, and pants dance of their own volition.Charles Bowers was forgotten for decades and his name was notably absent from most histories of the Silent Era... and how is that possible? Once you have seen this film, you will instantly put it up there with all the silent greats: Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Lloyd... maybe his output was smaller (I don't know), but this one film alone is an incredible mash of surrealistic weirdness and stop-motion chicanery. I can't think of anything else in the era that even comes close.

I saw this on TCM.I like good silent comedies, but this is definitely not one of them.It just seemed stupid rather than funny.Naming a ship coming from Scotland the "SS Hoot Mon" is painfully idiotic rather than humorous.Some people can tell even the corniest jokes and make them seem funny;other people just sound boring and tedious. This was definitely the latter. Made you wish for the Three Stooges. Amazing how much trouble someone want to and ended up with nothing.I thought that this would be a very useful tool to show to a film class in college to demonstrate that making a GOOD slapstick film is no where near as easy as it may seem.

This is one of those old silent movies that belong in a class with The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916) or Un Chien Andalou (1928)...it is so weird that it stands out and makes you notice it. This little gem involves a Scot detective, a haunted house, and a very goofy looking Phantom. It's very fast-paced and frantic...much like a Keystone Kops movie with a bit higher level of wit.