Mack Swain
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Mack Swain (born Moroni Swain, February 16, 1876 – August 25, 1935) was an early American film actor, who appeared in many of Mack Sennett's comedies at Keystone Studios, including the Keystone Cops series. He also appeared in major features by Charlie Chaplin. In the early 1900s Swain had his own stock theater company, which performed in the western and midwestern United States. Swain worked in vaudeville before starting in silent film at Keystone Studios under Mack Sennett. While with Keystone, he was teamed with Chester Conklin to make a series of comedy films. With Swain as "Ambrose" and Conklin as the grand mustachioed "Walrus", they performed these roles in several films including The Battle of Ambrose and Walrus and Love, Speed and Thrills, both made in 1915. Besides these comedies, the two appeared together in a variety of other films, 26 all told, and they also appeared separately and/or together in films starring Mabel Normand, Charles Chaplin, Roscoe Arbuckle and most of the rest of the roster of Keystone players. Swain later took his Ambrose character with him to the L-KO Kompany. Having already worked with Charles Chaplin at Keystone, Swain began working with him again at First National in 1921, appearing in The Idle Class, Pay Day, and The Pilgrim. He is also remembered for his large supporting role as Big Jim McKay in the 1925 film The Gold Rush, for United Artists, written by and starring Chaplin. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Mack Swain received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 1500 Vine Street.
Known For
A gold prospector in Alaska struggles to survive the elements and win the heart of a dance hall girl.
The Gold Rush
The Tramp is an escaped convict who is mistaken as a pastor in a small town church.
The Pilgrim
The three-hour Ai yo jinrui to tomo ni are / Love, Be with Humanity (1931) starts as a satire of alienation in the world of money, develops into a lumberland epic with a forest fire on Sakhalin Island, turns into a tragedy of King Lear dimensions, and manages to amaze the blasé audience with a happy end in the Wild West.
Love, Be with Humanity: Part 1
The three-hour Ai yo jinrui to tomo ni are / Love, Be with Humanity (1931) starts as a satire of alienation in the world of money, develops into a lumberland epic with a forest fire on Sakhalin Island, turns into a tragedy of King Lear dimensions, and manages to amaze the blasé audience with a happy end in the Wild West.
Love, Be with Humanity: Part 2
A bricklayer and his wife clash over his end-of-the-week partying.
Pay Day
Vladimir Dubrouvsky, a lieutenant in the Russian army, catches the eye of Czarina Catherine II. He spurns her advances and flees, and she puts out a warrant for his arrest, dead or alive. Vladimir learns that his father's lands have been taken by the evil Kyrilla Troekouroff, and his father dies. He dons a black mask, and becomes the outlaw The Black Eagle. He enters the Troekouroff household disguised as a French instructor for Kyrilla's daughter Mascha. He is after vengeance, but instead falls in love with Mascha.
The Eagle
François Villon, in his lifetime the most renowned poet in France, is also a prankster, an occasional criminal, and an ardent patriot.
The Beloved Rogue
A womanizing city man meets Tillie in the country. When he sees that her father has a very large bankroll for his workers, he persuades her to elope with him.
Tillie's Punctured Romance
A short comedy directed by Mabel Normand and Mack Sennett. believed to be a lost film.
Love and Gasoline
In Russia in the early 1900s, Fedya, a handsome, self-indulgent womanizer, falls in love with and marries Lisa, his friend Victor's fiancée. Fedya quickly tires of domestic life and resumes his profligate ways, drinking and gambling away his family's fortune. Lisa refuses to leave him despite his deplorable ways, so he takes drastic measures to ensure that she will no longer be harmed by his actions and reputation.
Redemption
An unemployed loafer who spends his time playing pool decides he's ready to look for a job so he can secure his girlfriend's parents' approval for their marriage.
Bad Boy
There is hunger in Siberia during the Russian Civil War. One day while dim-witted peasant Sergei is searching corpses for food, he meets a young woman looking for the town of Novokursk. She asks Sergei to help her get there, and to tell anyone they might meet that he is her husband.
Mockery
Two marines stationed in the Chinese port of Hang Chow decide to swear off women and join the lighthouse patrol.
Lighthouse Love
Mabel goes home after being humiliated by a masher whom her husband won't fight. The husband goes off to a bar and gets drunk.
Mabel's Married Life
Two criminals chase a plainclothes policeman who, while taking out his dog, witnesses their crime.
A Thief Catcher
Three Chaplin silent comedies "A Dog's Life", "Shoulder Arms", and "The Pilgrim" are strung together to form a single feature length film. Chaplin provides new music, narration, and a small amount of new connecting material. "Shoulder Arms" is now described as taking place in a time before "the atom bomb".
The Chaplin Revue
The sister of a sponge diver killed by a stingray loves an escaped convict posing as a priest.
The Sea Bat
A jealous wife is chasing her unfaithful husband during a parade, after he starts to flirt with a pretty woman.
A Busy Day
A young girl and her father are kicked out of their house by a cruel noblewoman, and the girl's heart is broken when her sweetheart, the noblewoman's son, won't go to Paris with them. After becoming an opera star in Paris, the girl returns to her homeland and finds her romance with the nobleman rekindled.
Torrent
Ambrose likes his mother's assistant, but when she inherits a fortune, the obstacles to their relationship keep mounting.