Best Comedy Movies of 1925

Struggling stockbroker Jimmie Shannon learns that, if he gets married by 7 p.m. on his 27th birthday -- which is today -- he'll inherit $7 million from an eccentric relative.

Harold Lamb is so excited about going to college that he has been working to earn spending money, practicing college yells, and learning a special way of introducing himself that he saw in a movie. When he arrives at Tate University, he soon becomes the target of practical jokes and ridicule. With the help of his one real friend Peggy, he resolves to make every possible effort to become popular.

A society woman believes her husband is having an affair, a misconception which may have dire personal consequences for all involved.

With little luck at keeping a job in the city a New Yorker tries work in the country and eventually finds his way leading a herd of cattle to the West Coast.

A general store clerk and aspiring detective investigates a mysterious disappearance that took place quite close to an empty insane asylum.

"Bilge" Smith (Richard Barthelmess), a tough sailor, meets Connie Martin (Dorothy Mackaill), a seamstress in a small harbor who has never had a boyfriend. Connie is instantly smitten. She invites Smith to dinner, where he dances with her and gives her a kiss. Connie has a hard time letting him go, and makes him promise that he will come back.

Jamison has a very jealous wife. Mrs. Jamison has a very gossipy friend. When the friend spots Jamison on the street talking to an attractive young woman, she reports back to Mrs. Jamison that her husband is obviously having an affair. Mrs. Jamison storms out, and a few minutes later a guest arrives for a visit -- a Professor Brown. Jamison doesn't realize the professor is a woman, and Mrs. Jamison, who has returned, doesn't realize the woman is Professor Brown. She presumes she has caught her husband with his mistress. A dancing butler, a game-playing dog, and a very accommodating burglar complicate the situation.

Jimmie Jump is returning from Europe to the USA. His parents and an old girl-friend, Sally - whom he hasn't seen for years, are expecting him at the dock. But, due to some unfortunate coincidences they are mistaken about the identity of each other, but meet unbeknownst to that fact. Jimmie decides that he has to find that girl. Finally, after having annoyed a policeman, and a great fraction of the female population, he finds her working as a temperance worker. To get her attention, he dresses up in rags to meet her. But his way of introduction causes more confusion.

Little orphan Harry is separated from his childhood sweetheart. Years later, he finds she's a bearded lady in a circus.

Charley Chase is a hapless inventor with a better mouse trap in this silent comedy from 1925.

A feisty little girl, the daughter of a beat cop, faces the challenges of growing up in a tough city neighborhood.

A few moments before Charley is going to marry, a friend, gives him an anonymous note, stating that the bride has a wooden leg.

A couple makes dolls modeled on neighborhood kids. A gardener at a mansion buys four of them for Mary, the girl of the house. He's her only friend: her parents neglect her for work and card games and her governess is humorless. Mary loves the dolls and dreams of them during her nap. While Mary sleeps, the governess throws the dolls in the dust bin. Mary wakes and goes searching - outside she runs into the very same four kids who were the dolls' models, and she thinks she's still dreaming...

Charley's battle-axe mother-in-law breaks up his marriage and tries to separate him from his son. Charlie abducts the boy for a father-son outing to the beach. The mother-in-law pursues and comedy ensues.

Steve Tuttle, the titular lazybones, takes on the responsibility of raising a fatherless girl, causing a scandal in his small town. Many years later, having returned from World War I, he discovers that he loves the grown-up girl.

Tim Kelly is an orphan who runs away after his orphanage burns down. Presumed to be killed in the fire, he is able to roam the streets of New York freely. He meets Max Ginsberg, an old Jewish junk dealer with rheumatism, and the two strike a partnership and a close friendship.

Wealthy racing driver Tom Hayden (Reginald Denny) loses his inheritance and his fiance due to a wacky mishap on his wedding day.

A Scottish immigrant on board ship becomes a pawn in a jewel heist aboard the S.S. Cognac, a three-star liner. Blackie Dawson, the uncrowned king of jewel thieves, and his accomplice Pearl Blackstone, have stolen a huge ruby. A detective is searching every cabin, so Blackie forces our young Scot to swallow the gem and, under threat of being shot, to stay mum. The detective is assisted by Flora Danube, a blue-eyed Bulgarian daisy who keeps those eyes open. To escape death, the young Scot disguises himself as a woman, but that draws a lot of attention; when his disguise is discovered, he must climb for his life. Is a European union in the offing?

Bill Dana, a New York City playboy, can't resist the flaming flappers and red-hot mamas along the Great White Way, so he decides to head out west to his uncle's ranch in Wind River, Texas. But the gold-diggers and their relatives follow him.

Adults have the Pike and Coney Island amusement parks, so the rascals put up their own rides in a large vacant lot. Mickey's got big plans for expansion when surveyors show up to begin work on a factory. The gang travels by donkey cart to the office of Henry Mills, President of Pan American Export Company, to protest. Henry, in his 60s, is still a boy at heart: he has his chauffeur stop the car so he can join a sandlot game. He bails on a meeting with his board of directors, going with the kids to the factory site where he stops the workers and helps our gang add more rides. The directors follow him, and they get put to work. Will they ever have their meeting?

The gang play inside a railroad box car which suddenly closes, trapping them inside. The next morning they find themselves in New York City. After seeing some of the sites on foot, they steal a 5th Avenue Bus, and are caught by the police.

A European countess, after being betrayed by her lover, goes to live in small town Middle America with her cousins and causes havoc among the rather puritanical community members.

The two-reel silent film comedy The Caretaker's Daughter was distributed by Pathe in 1925. Produced by the prolific Hal Roach, the film stars the great Charley Chase in a case of multiple incarnations!

Chester Winfield tries to make it as a lumberjack, but he's foiled by his lack of strength and the jealous foreman, Big Bill Reardon, after Chester catches the eye of Hazel Wood, Big Bill's favorite and the camp's waitress. Bill tries to eliminate Chester, so he and Hazel head down the mountain for other work. She waits tables and gets him a job as a dishwasher. He spills kerosene in the soup and then must serve it to an angry customer. Hazel tells a couple of tall tales about Chester, and soon all the customers, the owner, and the cook, think he's a desperado. They make him the saloon bouncer. Some trick shooting seals his reputation. Then Big Bill arrives for a showdown.

A comedic deja vu story of runaway young love.

Despite his faithfulness, Melvin is always under suspicion by wife Mame. Complications erupt when a woman from a party across the hall passes out in Melvin's bedroom just before Mame returns.

In this two-reeler, Jimmy Jump wants to please both of his parents, but they disagree about everything. His father wants him to act more manly, although Jimmy gets his sensitivity from his mother. He wants to wed his girlfriend, and so accepts a job at his father's iron foundry, but does not excel there. Next, Jimmy goes to a tough dance-hall to impress his girl. A highlight is his parody of an Isadora Duncan dance.

Daydreaming waitress Jennie Hagen fantasizes about becoming a famous actress, while in reality she and her cook boyfriend, Orme Wilson, hope to one day own their own diner. Although Orme loves Jennie, he also has a weakness for stage stars -- so when a riverboat theatrical crew comes to their town, he is smitten by lead actress Lillian Lyons. Desperate to keep Orme, Jennie insists on going onstage to best Lillian, but is soon out of her depth.

Many of the "Our Gang" kids are in their secret clubhouse - so secret that some wannabe members have troubles trying to find the tunnel entrance - planning their next game, which will be a Wild West shootout. They run into some obstacles in playing the game, including objections from parents, and as such they decide to postpone it until the wee hours of the next morning and play it in the streets of the neighborhood. As it begins to rain during the middle of their shootout that morning, they decide to take refuge in a neighborhood house. What they are unaware of is that the house belongs to inventor W.R. Jones, who rigged it to be a "magnetic house", a demonstration for a possible amusement park attraction. Not knowing about the house's rigged contraptions leads to a lot of misadventures for the gang not related to shooting Indians as they try to figure out what's happening around them.

A European Ruler falls in love with an American.

Jimmy Jump (Charley Chase) and his wife find a baby left at their door. They happily take the baby in but find themselves at a loss when they want to sleep but the baby cries all night.

Two thieves discover a professional and personal relationship when individual heist plans are thrown together by circumstance.

The Swan (1925) is a silent film produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on Melville Baker's 1923 Broadway play adaptation, The Swan, of Ferenc Molnar's play A Hattyu Vigjatek Harom Felvonasbarn. This film was directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki, a recent Russian immigrant working for Famous Players-Lasky. Buchowetzki had directed pictures in Russia, Sweden, and Germany. The story of this film was remade in 1930 as One Romantic Night, an early talkie for Lillian Gish, and in Technicolor as a 1956 vehicle for Grace Kelly.

The kids in the tenements have no place to play except in streets where traffic is a hazard. Mickey gets the idea of building barricades to give our gang space to play at an intersection, but a beat cop, the nasty "Hard-Boiled" McManus, puts a quick end to that. A sympathetic constable and a detective who has kids of his own give our gang a chance to help law enforcement. The little rascals wear uniforms and keep an eye on things: Joe, for instance, eyes the bananas at Tony's fruit stand. When the now-fired McManus returns and seeks revenge, the junior police force and their adult colleagues are put to the test.

Your Own Back Yard is a 1925 American short silent comedy film directed by Robert F. McGowan. It was the 43rd Our Gang short subject released. Farina is having a very bad day, especially by his friends-very cruel playing nasty tricks, etc. Heeding his mother's advice to stay "in your own back yard," he does just that, feeding jumping beans to his chickens.

Judge Foster throws his daughter out because she married a circus man. She leaves her baby girl with Prof. McGargle before she dies. Years later Sally is a dancer with whom Peyton, a son of Judge Foster's friend, falls in love. When Sally is arrested McGargle proves her real parentage.

A farm girl learns she is a princess and is swept away by a tornado to the land of Oz.

The circus is in town and for one day only. By pretending to be sick some of the gang members were able to play hooky from school so as to attend the festivities.

Charley is plagued with failure and with his brother-in-law, who's allergic to labor. When he decides to take the family on a camping trip, his wife learns about a contest sponsored by a pen company, with the first prize being an ocean trip. To win the prize Charley has to sell those pens - surprisingly he wins, but the ship turns out to be a wreck on it's last trip to the scrapyard. To make things worse they accidentally leave their young daughter on the dock and the ship sails without her. What else can go wrong on this trip?

When Buttonshoe Bill steals some papers from Buckwheat Ben, and kidnaps Ben's daughter, Rodney Hemingway comes to the rescue.

A paperhanger and his helper arrive at a sanitarium to do a job. The chubby paperhanger leaves most of the work to his thin assistant, who tries gamely but usually makes a mess. Various patients at the asylum interrupt and complicate the work, and, to the dismay of the lazy boss, a nurse is attracted to the helper. Amidst all the paste, ladders, brushes, and the images of circus and jungle animals on the wallpaper, is there any way this job gets done to the satisfaction of the sanitarium's director?

The boys are showing off their dogs to each other when little rich girl Mary Kornman rides by in her pony-drawn cart. When the pony shies and runs away, Mickey comes to the rescue with his dog. In gratitude, Mary invites all the boys and their dogs to her party, much to the chagrin of her wealthy mother.

The gang decided to go into the movie-making business, using all kinds of sets and props. There were problems as those not involved are trying to ruin their business by playing pranks and even insisting the police to close them down.

Charley Chase plays the type of character he does best, which is a weak nerd who is constantly letting people push him around. This happens at his work when a co-worker sneaks off with the boss's daughter who just happens to be the crush for Charley. After accidentally getting loaded on bootleg whiskey, Charley gets some courage and goes out to get his woman.

Helen has a twin sister, who is a famous actress named "La Perry". Helen and her sister decide to trick Helen's husband to prove his love.

Neil McRae, an impoverished composer, loves Cynthia Mason, but, fearing poverty, proposes to wealthy Gladys Cady. Can he compose himself and find the courage to seek love over comfort?

In Highland Park, it's Agnes Fisher and Harold Hope's wedding day. Mishaps almost keep them from getting hitched: he goes to the wrong church, then, one of the guests, Professor McGlumm, convinces him that the bride only wants him to collect his life insurance. Finally they marry and her family moves in with them. Harold is now convinced that he'll be poisoned at dinner. When further mishaps give him stomach problems, McGlumm rushes him toward the hospital. On the trip, all is revealed.

An intrusive censor interferes with the filming of a melodrama.

The key to baseball is the pitcher, of course. In this comedy short, the pitcher has something special. Special enough to elicit a threat to rig a game! Our hero has other ideas, though.