Best Comedy Movies of 1918

An American doughboy, stationed in France during the Great War, goes on a daring mission behind enemy lines and becomes a hero.

George Periolat plays a dual role in this film, initially as Joseph Sayles a sickly old man who has taken his daughter, Rhoda (played by Mary Miles Minter), overseas after a quarrel with his family. She yearns to return home, but he has disowned his past. After his death, Rhoda ventures to America on her own. She nearly becomes destitute for a lack of money but happens upon some questionable fortune as she takes on the chores of Rosy Taylor after inadvertently finding an envelope with money in it. Rosy had been hired as a housekeeper (thus the money), but has passed away before actually showing up for employment.

At the Elk's Head Hotel bellhops torment the lobby, each other and guests. The elevator is powered by a stubborn horse. A sham robbery turns into a real one. And there is a chase on a runaway trolley.

Mickey, an orphan who has been brought up in a mining settlement, is sent to New York to live with her aunt.

In an attempt at greater efficiency, the chef of a fancy oceanside restaurant and his assistant wreak havoc in the establishment. Adding to the complications is the arrival of a robber.

The story involves Arbuckle coming to the western town of Mad Dog Gulch after being thrown off a train and chased by Indians. He teams up with gambler/saloon owner Bill Bullhum, in trying to keep the evil Wild Bill Hickup away from Salvation Army girl, Salvation Sue. Fatty and Buster have a series of adventures trying to beat St. John, until they discover his one weakness: his ticklishness.

Roscoe's wife, tired of his endless drunkenness, reads of an operation that cures alcoholism and has him admitted to No Hope Sanitarium to get the surgery. Roscoe, wanting out, eventually disguises himself as a nurse to effect his escape.

After receiving an inheritance from an uncle, a woman starts a fortune telling business designed to make her dreams come true.

In this early short Harold Lloyd sneaks into a movie studio in order to locate an attractive young lady he's just met at a snack bar. He's retrieved a letter she dropped and wants to return it to her, but it's pretty clear that his interest extends beyond mere politeness. (She's the adorable young Bebe Daniels, so this is easy to understand.) The movie studio setting provides Harold with lots of opportunities to do what comedians do in comedies like this one: flirt with actresses, anger the studio brass, and dash through sets disrupting everything.

A propaganda film created by Charlie Chaplin at his own expense for the Liberty Load Committee to help sell U.S. Liberty Bonds during World War I. The story is a series of sketches humorously illustrating various bonds like the bond of friendship and of marriage and, most important, the Liberty Bond, to K.O. the Kaiser which Charlie does literally.

Charles Murdock neglects his fat and lazy wife for another woman; When his other love interest becomes involved in a murder, he leaves for Paris.

A young girl, stifling on her father's backwoods farm, is reinvigorated by the arrival of an army regiment, come to train in the area.

Sincere but struggling sculptor Tommasso (Caruso--bushy moustache, gawky) works in an ornamental plaster shop, but his masterpiece on the side is a bust of his cousin Caroli (Caruso--no moustache, polished), who is the Metropolitan Opera's leading tenor. Tommasso hopes to marry his model Rosa, but her father, restaurant owner Pietro, wants her to find someone more settled and money-conscious, such as the greengrocer Lombardi down the street. Tommasso, he says, throws away his money, such as for a pair of tickets to take Rosa to the opera to see his famed cousin. After the opera, the cousins cross paths in the swanky Galeotto's restaurant, but when neither recognizes the other, Tommasso is generally mocked and Rosa believes him a liar and unworthy. Tommasso must recover his reputation and make a sale, preferably the Caroli bust to his cousin, in order to win Rosa back.

As Colonel Nutt is experimenting with explosives, a new janitor is joining his household. The inept janitor proceeds to make life difficult for the rest of staff.

It's a classic boy-meets-girl story, boy-loses-girl, boy gets mistaken for an escaped convict and ruthlessly chased by armies of cops across the countryside in a thrill-packed stunt-addled climax.

M'liss, a feisty young girl in a mining camp, falls for Charles Gray, the school teacher. Charles is implicated in a murder of which he is innocent, and the two must fight to save him from a lynching.

Chase Me Charlie was an anthology consisting of excerpts from several of Chaplin's short films made for the Essanay Company, including The Tramp, Shanghaied, In the Park and The Bank. The 1918 film-- fourteen years later-- was re released, this time with music and narration. The score was written by Elias Breeskin and the narration was spoken by Teddy Bergman who later changed his name to Alan Reed

This film was never released for the general public. It was hidden in Chaplin's private vaults for forty years until he included some parts of it in his compilation 'The Chaplin Revue' in 1959.

A customer arrives at a restaurant in which Mutt is the waiter, and Jeff is the cook. The customer orders oxtail soup, and then argues with Mutt when it turns out to contain no actual tail. After Mutt then attends, with some difficulty, to two other customers, he takes an order for pancakes from an attractive woman. When the pancakes arrive, she is dissatisfied with them, and so Mutt tries to make amends.

Mercy, the Mummy Mumbled pokes fun at both mad scientists and the Egyptian mummy craze that followed the discovery of King Tut's tomb early in the 20th century. A young man wooing the daughter of a scientist hatches a get rich quick scheme when he spots a classified ad searching for "a mummy for experimental purposes." While he wraps up a phony for the scientist, two Egyptian agents (outfitted in a crazy mix of ancient fashion and modern style) tracking stolen relics get tangled in the confusion.

Patricia O'Rourke, a good-natured prankster who works as a copy girl for the Sentinel , angers her co-worker Stubbs and is about to lose her job when the managing editor offers her one more chance. Her assignment is to explain the clue that links the Hope Mission, a derelict home run by millionaire Hunter Mason and his secretary, Monty Latham, with a series of local robberies. When Hunter discovers Patricia in his office, he assumes that she is a crook in need of reforming and takes her into his home to be cared for by his mother.....

A young man impersonates his best friend, and in doing so upsets the decorum at a stuffy family gathering and falls in love. The arrival of a gang of hoodlums further disrupts the formalities, but our hero thwarts them and saves the day.

Con artists Harold and Snub attempt to outwit phony psychic Miss Goulash and her "professor" father.

A clueless man finds a bomb on the street and keeps throwing it to the crowd around him. The sketch then moves with the clueless nerd getting involved in all sorts of troubles until he accidentally gets into a hideout from a terrorist group that will complicate things for him more than he ever hoped.

Our hero gets a job at a hotel in the country and proceeds to introduce some changes, installing gadgets and time-saving devices.

A photo studio operator seems only interested in flirting with women. Hilarity ensues.

A rich man's daughter has more suitors than she's interested in, and he's going to marry her off -- even if she doesn't know about it.

Hijinx at a classical dance academy when two tramps take a stab at ballet.

A wealthy society playboy falls in love with the daughter of a poor fisherman. After Valentino shot to fame, A Society Sensation was cut down to a meek 24 minutes so the lead would be in every scene. Title cards tried to make up for the lost scenes.

A married society couple (Dorian and Warren) persuade an unmarried pair (Valentino and Myers) to take their places at a party while they pretend to be the servants.

A feud between the Owens and the Gillettes ends when the last remaining Gillette is killed, but new trouble erupts for the mountain folk with the arrival of a U.S. revenue agent and his assistant.

Larry and his wife are desperately poor—with no food. However, the butcher and grocer show up to collect money they are owed and they won't take no for an answer. They are ready to take anything and everything and eventually chase the pair up onto the room—where various stunts occur.

A nervy young man follows a pretty lady into a diner to flirt with her, but winds up getting stuck with the tab.

Based on the Buster Brown comic by R.F. Outcault.

Bebe is surrounded by suitors, but her father wants her to marry Professor M. T. Noodle. Harold makes his move by impersonating the professor.

A mild-mannered young man has left home, and is now playing the piano in a bar in the west. The dangerous criminal Dagger-Tooth Dan enters the bar where the young man is playing. Soon afterwards, the local sheriff also arrives, with some letters that he has received. Dan notices the letters, and he switches the information in them to make the sheriff think that the piano player is the dangerous one.

A man decides to stage a fake robbery in front of his girlfriend's father (who doesn't like him), hoping it will make the father change his opinion. Unfortunately, real crooks wind up taking the money from the "robbery", and the boyfriend has to get it back.

Our hero, a professor in Turkey, challenges a Sultan for the affections of a girl.

In this popular two reeler where Harold runs to the rescue of a woman on a fire engine, he is seen hanging on the moving vehicle by the released water hose that forces him closer to the ground.

Hear 'Em Rave is a 1918 short comedy film featuring Harold Lloyd.

Chased from his apartment by a policeman, ne'er do-well Rastus Jones finds refuge in a Chinese laundry, where he wreaks slapstick havoc and has a memorable encounter with an improperly-filled opium pipe.

Molly is a wife of wealthy Britisher Sam Thornhill. Though devoutly loyal to her husband, the capricious Molly can't seem to avoid getting herself into compromising situations. The limit comes when a pair of Molly's stockings find their way into the boudoir of another man.

Cheyenne Harry (Carey) and his pals, bent on helping their friend Rawhide Jack, attend a rodeo with the intent to win the prize for roping steers and to hand the winnings over to Jack.

Detective Knick Garter and his sidekick Rheuma Tism are called for help by their friend, inventor I. Wanta Sneeze.

Short King Bee Studios slapstick comedy featuring Billy West and Oliver Hardy

Young couple gets married in secret because her family objects to the match. To escape the family the couple goes into hiding.

Billy West as does fairly random series of gags as a bellboy in a rather poor hotel run by Oliver Hardy.

Imagine this, and you are in the world of Billy West, who looks like Chaplin, and acts something like Chaplin, but does not think like him, or come close to moving like him. In this film, West escapes a couple of cops, and fights for the Mabel Normand imitation with Oliver Hardy (who in this film is an Eric Campbell imitation). The dynamic between West in Hardy is more Popeye and Bluto (without the funny gags). The only original jokes involve our heroine's romantic assaults on Hardy's mustache.

Bebe and girlfriend go shopping for new corsets. Harold sneaks into the corset shop and a customer asks him to take her measurements - a ticklish task, as the brash young man suddenly becomes playfully bashful.