The Keystone Cops are fictional, humorously incompetent policemen featured in silent film slapstick comedies produced by Mack Sennett for his Keystone Film Company between 1912 and 1917.
Mack Sennett was a Canadian-American producer, director, actor, and studio head who was known as the "King of Comedy" during his career.
Tillie's Punctured Romance is a 1914 American silent comedy film directed by Mack Sennett and starring Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand, Charlie Chaplin, and the Keystone Cops. The picture is the first feature-length comedy and was the only feature-length comedy made by the Keystone Film Company.
Amabel Ethelreid Normand, better known as Mabel Normand, was an American silent film actress, director and screenwriter. She was a popular star and collaborator of Mack Sennett in their Keystone Studios films, and at the height of her career in the late 1910s and early 1920s had her own film studio and production company, the Mabel Normand Feature Film Company. On screen, she appeared in twelve successful films with Charlie Chaplin and seventeen with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, sometimes writing and directing films featuring Chaplin as her leading man.
Keystone Studios was an early film studio founded in Edendale, California on July 4, 1912 as the Keystone Pictures Studio by Mack Sennett with backing from actor-writer Adam Kessel (1866–1946) and Charles O. Baumann (1874–1931), owners of the New York Motion Picture Company. The company, referred to at its office as The Keystone Film Company, filmed in and around Glendale and Silver Lake, Los Angeles for several years, and its films were distributed by the Mutual Film Corporation between 1912 and 1915. The Keystone film brand declined rapidly after Sennett went independent in 1917.
Mack Swain was a prolific 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 and starred in both the world's first feature length comedy and first film to feature a "movie-within-a-movie" premise.
Mabel's Strange Predicament is a 1914 American film starring Mabel Normand and Charles Chaplin, notable for being the first film for which Chaplin donned the costume of The Tramp, although his appearance in the costume in Kid Auto Races at Venice was released first. The film was directed by Normand and produced by Mack Sennett.
Getting Acquainted, subsequently retitled A Fair Exchange, is a 1914 American comedy silent film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin, starring Chaplin and Mabel Normand, and produced by Mack Sennett for Keystone Studios.
A Noise from the Deep is a 1913 American short silent comedy film starring Mabel Normand and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. The film was directed and produced by Mack Sennett and also features the Keystone Cops on horseback. A Noise from the Deep still exists and was screened four times in 2006 in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City as part of a 56-film retrospective of all known surviving Arbuckle movies.
Fred Mace was a comedic actor during the silent era in the United States. He appeared in more than 150 films between 1909 and 1916. Mace worked for Mack Sennett at Keystone Studios. Shortly after he left, Roscoe Arbuckle, who had appeared in a few pictures at Keystone with Mace, took over as Sennett's lead comedic actor.
The Bangville Police is a 1913 comedy short starring Fred Mace, Mabel Normand and the Keystone Cops. The one-reel film, generally regarded as the seminal Keystone Cops short, was directed by Henry Lehrman.
The Water Nymph is a 1912 American silent comedy "split reel" short film starring Mabel Normand and directed by Mack Sennett. Normand performed her own diving stunts for the film, which was the first Keystone Studios comedy.
Mabel's Lovers is a 1912 American short silent comedy film starring Mabel Normand. The film was directed and produced by Mack Sennett.
Mabel's Adventures is a 1912 American short silent comedy film starring Mabel Normand and produced and directed by Mack Sennett for the Mutual Film Corporation.
Mabel Lost and Won is a 1915 American short comedy film starring Mabel Normand. The supporting cast includes Owen Moore as her love interest, Alice Davenport as her mother, and Fontaine La Rue as a vamp.
Mack at It Again is a 1914 short comedy film starring Mabel Normand and Mack Sennett. Mack Sennett also directed the film. The picture was produced by Sennett's Keystone Film Company and distributed by Mutual Film.
At Coney Island, also known as Cohen at Coney Island, is a 1912 American short silent comedy starring Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand, and Ford Sterling. Sennett also directed and produced the film. Sennett claimed this was the first Keystone Studios production, shot on location at Coney Island on July 4, 1912. It was the eleventh Keystone film released, on a split-reel with A Grocery Clerk's Romance.
Hollywood Cavalcade is a 1939 American film featuring Alice Faye as a young performer making her way in the early days of Hollywood, from slapstick silent pictures through the transition from silent to sound.
Al St. John (1893–1963) was an American comic actor who appeared in 394 films between 1913 and 1952. Starting at Mack Sennett's Keystone Film Company, St. John rose through the ranks to become one of the major comedy stars of the 1920s, though less than half of his starring roles still survive today. With the advent of sound drastically changing and curtailing the two-reel comedy format, St. John diversified, creating a second career for himself as a comic sidekick in Western films and ultimately developing the character of "Fuzzy Q. Jones", for which he is best known in posterity.
At It Again is a 1912 American short silent comedy film produced and directed by Mack Sennett. The film stars Fred Mace, Mack Sennett, Ford Sterling, Mabel Normand and Alice Davenport.
