Best Comedy Movies of 1921

A series of adventures begins when Buster is mistaken for Dead Shot Dan, the evil bad guy.

Buster is thrown off a train near an amusement park. There he gets a job in a shooting gallery run by the Blinking Buzzards mob. Ordered to kill a businessman, he winds up protecting the man and his daughter by outfitting their home with trick devices.

Our hero is infatuated with a girl in the next office. In order to drum up business for her boss, an osteopath, he gets an actor friend to pretend injuries that the doctor "cures", thereby building a reputation. When he hears that his girl is marrying another, he decides to commit suicide and spends the bulk of the film in thrilling, failed attempts.

After waking up from his wacky dream, a theater stage hand inadvertently causes havoc everywhere he works.

At an upper class golf resort, a tramp discovers he's the lookalike of a rich man with a beautiful, unhappy wife.

A down on his luck young man makes several attempts at committing suicide but fails them too. He then finds himself becoming more confident through a series of petty adventures, to such an extent that this becomes his undoing.

After breaking a mirror in his home, superstitious Max tries to avoid situations which could bring bad luck, but in doing so causes himself the worst luck imaginable.

Harpo played the hero, a detective named Watson who "made his entrance in a high hat, sliding down a coal chute into the basement". Groucho played an "old movie" villain, who "sported a long moustache and was clad in black", while Chico was probably his "chuckling [Italian] henchman". Zeppo portrayed a playboy who was the owner of a nightclub in which most of the action took place, including "a cabaret, [which allowed] the inclusion of a dance number". The final shot showed Groucho "in ball and chain, trudging slowly off into the gloaming". Harpo, in a rare moment of romantic glory, gets the girl in the end.

Buster's handmade boat, The Damfino, is finished and is, of course, too large to get through the basement door. When he drives off with it in tow, the side of his house, then the whole thing, collapses. At the harbor he rides the boat out only to have it sink beneath him. The rest is a series of adventures he and his family have with the restored boat.

Buster Keaton is a bank teller who becomes involved with a hold-up, counterfeiters, and a theatrical troupe posing as spooks in a haunted house.

An idle, wealthy playboy foolishly joins the Navy when the father of the girl he wants to marry tells him to get a job to prove himself worthy.

A top-hatted bill collector is given the unenviable assignment of collecting the debts of a bad-tempered innkeeper.

Socialite Anatol Spencer, finding his relationship with his wife lackluster, goes in search of excitement. After bumping into old flame Emilie, he lets an apartment for her only to find that she cheats on him. He is subsequently robbed, conned, and booted from pillar to post. He decides to return to his wife and discovers her carousing with his best friend Max.

An important example of amateur filmmaking during this era, That Ice Ticket was made by Angela Murray Gibson who ran Gibson Studios in the small community of Casselton, North Dakota. Gibson cast community members in her productions, taking on multiple roles herself, writing, directing and acting in the films, operating the camera during filming, then processing the footage and editing the finished picture together. Here she plays a young woman managing multiple male suitors with the "help" of her mischievous kid brother.

Bob Carter and "Loot" Follet, are two thieves who locate themselves in the unused part of the New Hampshire home of Aunt Mehitable and her niece Dorcas. Loan shark Jonathan Squoggs presses Mehitable for payment of the mortgage, and the two crooks decide to help the ladies when they consult their Ouija board to find a hidden treasure. Finding the treasure reveals a surprise thief and a chance for new lives for the crooks, Dorcas, and Mehitable.

An excellent silent comedy starring unjustly forgotten star Douglas MacLean. Its indictment of pharmaceutical entrepreneurs is far sharper than Side Effects'.

Koko The Clown continually interrupts an animator, who turns his attention to trapping the clown.

A government official staying in a hotel puts some important secret papers in the hotel safe. A ring of spies out to get the papers manages to steal them from the safe, and a lady government agent enlists the help of the hotel's bumbling bellhop in getting back the papers and breaking up the spy ring.

Max is determined to woo Mary, despite her Aunt Agatha's disapproval.

After eating a rarebit at a party, a woman has a strange dream in which her husband converts their home into a flying machine to escape having to pay the exorbitant interest on the mortgage, on a flight that takes them around the world and to the moon.

A man with a huge hooked nose enters the Fleischer studios to have his bust sculpted. Meanwhile, across the studio, Max is animating Koko. When he's called over to consult on the too-accurate bust, Koko gets mischievous and creates his own drawings. He then escapes and crawls inside the clay bust, eventually wriggling off like an inchworm. He gets into a fight with the man being modelled, both of them flinging wads of clay.

Sam, a young man in a small town, is accused of being a thief. Unable to prove his innocence--and not knowing that he's being framed by a local villain to keep him away from pretty young Mary, the town beauty whom the villain wants for himself--he leaves town and goes to Hollywood to become an actor. He eventually returns home to town as a star, but once again finds himself the victim of the town villain, who this time abducts sweet young Mary. Sam must use all his acting skills to track down the villain and save Mary.

A young Belgian girl, raised by her longtime nanny, flees Europe at the advent of World War I and travels to America to find her real mother.

A young man, unaccustomed to children, must accompany a young girl on a train trip.

The Rent Collector is a 1921 American silent comedy film featuring Larry Semon & Oliver Hardy.

Lois Wilson (as Lulu) is the spinsterish member of the Deacon family: "The family beast of burden, whose timid soul has failed to break the bonds of family servitude." Her brother-in-law is patriarchal Theodore Roberts (as Dwight Deacon); running the house with an iron fist, he is both a dentist and a Justice of the Peace. As the latter, he accidentally marries Ms. Wilson to his visiting brother Clarence Burton (as Ninian Deacon) while they are out for dinner. Schoolteacher Milton Sills (as Neil Cornish) is also interested in Wilson...

A spoiled rich young woman overspends from her parents' savings and ruthlessly vamps on young men that she calls up randomly on the telephone. When her fiancée and his friends get word of this, they hatch a plan to teach her a valuable lesson.

An ambitious coat-room checker impersonates an English nobleman.

Eccentric inventor Charlie Jackson tries to interest wealthy investors in his girlfriend's plan to help children from poor neighbourhoods.

An orphan escapes immigration officials at Ellis Island and goes to live with an old ship's master who can't find work and can't pay the rent.

The frothy experiences of a vain little flapper. Her father induces an actor friend to become a gentlemanly cave man and the film becomes another variation of the 'Taming of the Shrew' theme.

A runaway train speeds down the track.

Comic adventures of newlyweds and children.

In their first screen appearance together, Stan plays a penniless dog lover and Oliver plays a crook who tries to rob him and his new paramour.

Windsor McCay's partially lost follow-up to his tremendouly successful Gertie the Dinosaur. Gertie has been brought into the modern world. Continually perplexed by her new surroundings, she begins to explore the new sights. But when she sleeps, she dreams of the way it used to be, in the days when the world was full of dinosaurs like herself.

Flip is balancing his hat on his face while leaning forwards and backwards. He eventually falls face forward. Flip opens the tent flap to reveal a lot of large animals behind him. A large animal creature-I have no idea what it is-comes out and starts to interact with Flip. Flip keeps hitting him. Flip puts his head in the animal's mouth. At one point, the animal swallows him as we see moving bumps on the stomach. He then spits him back out!

This portrayal of small town life before the War is based on a small boys determination to get to see the circus, over all obstacles. Escaped lions, lightheaded blackmail of his father, and playfully planting stolen papers on his sisters boyfriend are all in a days work for little Henry Peck.

A short film depicting Walt Disney sitting at his desk drawing a series of still cartoons and simple animations in a satirical newsreel format. Four cartoons about Kansas City are presented: "Cleaning Up!!?," "Kansas City Girls Are Rolling Their Own Now," "Did You Ever Take a Ride Over Kansas City Street in a Fliver" and "Kansas City's Spring Clean-Up."

Larry falls afoul of wanted criminal Gentleman Joe, who runs a saloon full of tough guys and gunslingers.

A man poses as a lifeguard but his rescue techniques are not the most desirable.

“At Your Service” (aka James Manages a Restaurant), 1921, starring Sidney Smith, is a nice and inventive silent comedy. James and George are seen driving down the street in an extremely dilapidated vehicle and they stop when they see a sign on a restaurant window asking for buyers OR someone willing to trade for the business. Well, given that the car is a mess, they figure to make a killing by trading it for the restaurant.

A guy has troubles on a trolley

Max is too rushed to do a thorough job of drawing Koko this morning. Max is going fishing. However, to amuse the clown, he draws a fishing pole and a pond before he goes.

Monte Brewster learns that he has inherited $10 million from his late grandfather, but then learns that he must spend $2 million in less than a year and remain unmarried to inherit the rest of the money.

In 1921, a young man, having read Mark Twain's classic novel of the same title, dreams that he himself travels to King Arthur's court, where he has similar adventures and outwits his foes by means of very modern inventions including motorcycles and nitroglycerine.

The comical, classic movie of the big city misadventures of Little Casino.

Slim Cody works in the movie industry, doubling for the performers. He has a dream in which he portrays Romeo in a movie version of "Romeo and Juliet," and arranges for someone to double for him when the fight scenes get scary. ....

Shenanigans at a small town movie theater.

Vivacious Marie Prevost starred in this pleasant little Universal comedy about a flirt who stages moonlight dances at her father's country estate in order to provoke eligible men to fall in love with her.