Weird Films, Library of Congress plus Alphonse and Gaston

The Library of Congress has a YouTub account, where they have been posting various lectures and concerts, and early recordings and films ranging from Edison to now. I found some old films of vaudeville acts that are, well... really weird. Here's a link to an Edison film from 1903 entitled "Alphonse and Gaston". The characters being portrayed were actually from the comic strip, Alphonse and Gaston by Fredrick Opper for William Randolph Hearst's newspaper empire. The premise of the comic strip was that both Alphonse and Gaston were extremely polite, constantly bowing and deferring to each other. Neither could ever do anything or go anywhere because each insisted on letting the other precede him. Opper in later years did the Happy Hooligan comic strip also for Hearst.

Comments

[Jay Amicarella]

'Oh, this was weak. I was never interested. Although the part of the [bartender] was played with gusto and verve and the [outlaw] had a delightful cameo role. A puckish satire of contemporary mores. A droll spoof aimed more at the heart than the head.' (paraphrasing Woody Allen in "Love and Death.")