It may be said in passing that not all the companies producing farcical photoplays or slap-stick, as it is generally called—­exclude the work of the outside writer.  Such firms as do accept outside scripts of this kind are prepared to “go the limit” in the matter of expense in order to make their pictures superlatively funny and unusual in the matter of staging.  The Pathe comedy, “Cleopatsy,” featuring the famous clown Toto, was a striking example of how a slap-stick comedy today is unhesitatingly given as elaborate and sumptuous a scenic investiture as was accorded a few years ago to screen-versions of Shakespearean or other “classic” plays.  The laughs in this Pathe production were produced, principally, by the introduction of business and situations that simply could not have happened in the time of Cleopatra, Antony and Caesar.  Thus we saw traffic policemen with their Stop and Go signals in the middle of the Sahara; telephones, check books, motorcycles and automobiles in use, and so on.  In addition, the leaders were filled with modern business and other slang; and the spectacle of a huge negro wrapping Cleopatsy in a modern Axminster rug and carrying her in to show her to Antony (instead of, as according to history, Caesar) kept the spectators in a roar of laughter.  For an originally-worked-out idea such as this there is nearly always a ready market.

Finally, remember that comedy-action should run as smoothly as a well-oiled machine.  Start with a good, fresh, funny idea and then make each scene run smoothly and logically into the next.  There are certain series of comic pictures in the comic section of the newspapers which might well serve as your models for progressive and logical action.  Mr. Bud Fisher’s well-known “Mutt and Jeff” and Mr. George McManus’s “Bringing Up Father” series are excellent examples.  Particularly in the McManus pictures do we get funny, logical, and, above all, generally natural—­in the sense of its being probable—­comedy action.  Take as an example the one which is sub-titled “It’s a pity the valet left—­he would have been such a nice playmate for Father.”  “Father,” as we know, is the very much hen-pecked husband of a socially impossible woman who holds her place among the “400” only by reason of her husband’s wealth.  It is Father’s constant ambition and determination to spend as much of his time as possible amongst his old “roughneck” working-man pals, instead of in attending his wife’s receptions and other society functions.  A sociable companion of his own class is what he constantly seeks.  In this picture there are, as is usual in the Sunday supplements, twelve scenes.  The action of the picture may be roughly synopsized as follows: 

Scene 1.  Mrs. Jiggs introduces Mr. Jiggs—­“Father”—­to the new, and very English, valet—­who “waited on Count de Miles until he died.”  To which Father (possible sub-title) replies:  “No wonder he died!”

Scene 2.  The butler, in Father’s room, announces that he “thinks he’ll like the job and that Father won’t find him hard to please.”