19. Film and Cinema

MUTIES.—Australists love to laugh – and one of their favourite ways to laugh is to go to the movies and watch a “mutie”. A Mutie is a filmed - entertainment starring some mentally - defective, genetically unfit sub - human getting hurt or mutilated in a variety of unusual situations.¶

The leading lowlight of the feeble - minded mutie genre is our very own Warty Lowland.

WARTY LOWLAND: SHORT LEG ( 1920 )
Warty Lowland was famous for his often perilous “runt - work” and dangerous deformations. This short film is contains the now famous “leg - popping” scene, where Warty – trapped under his car in the path of an oncoming locomotive – is saved from certain doom by wrenching his legs OUT of his pelvis. There are no runt doubles, camera tricks, or fancy prop gadgets – the gag happened just as it appears, and had Lowland been a few seconds late, the results might have been fatal. Now that’s a dedicated retard.¶

Though imperfect, Short Leg is one of Lowland’s best shorts, its only flaw ( a minor one, at that ) is the overlong enema scene. Otherwise, there’s an abundance of truly classic mutilation here. Besides the famous stunt described above, watch for his hysterical simpleton solutions to his problems – drinking tea, getting his wheelchair into the cinema, going to the toilet, etc. Not to be missed.

WARTY LOWLAND: WARD 13 ( 1920 )
Lowland eludes the police by slipping into an asylum dressed in a patient’s straitjacket, then spends the rest of the time avoiding enemas and big mean interns. A classic tale of mishapen identitiy. Standard Lowland innovation and madcap hijinks sure to please.¶

One of Warty Lowland’s best short films ever, Ward is a fine showcase of Lowland’s physical deformity. A series of mishaps gets him deeper and deeper into trouble, culminating in what appears to an amputation. Lowland’s efforts to elude the interns are both pathetic and funny. This short also contains a classic sequence with a mule and an over-full wagon load of caged children.

WARTY LOWLAND: THE DANGER SIGN ( 1921 )
Warty Lowland was fascinated with the mechanical & industrial means of mutilation. This short is a fine example of that, with elaborate mechanical props providing the working materials for this showcase of Lowland’s reduced mental age. Although the concluding scarification scenes go on a tad too long, the mutilation here ranks with his best and funniest work. The hilarity is near non - stop.

WARTY LOWLAND: THE BED ( 1921 )
In one of Warty Lowland’s weaker shorts, he builds a bed in his basement and sleeps on it. Creative mishaps ensue, of course, and there are many laughs to be had.

WARTY LOWLAND: THE SLACKJAW BLACKSMITH ( 1922 )
This Warty Lowland short showcases his taste for mechanical mutilation. He’s an assistant to a blacksmith, but when the blacksmith is arrested, Lowland’s in charge. Customers come in with various problems with their horses or cars, and the stupid & idiotic solutions Lowland invents for them ( and the disfigurements wrought upon them ) are ridiculously lethal, not to mention laugh - out - loud funny.

WARTY LOWLAND: THE ELECTRIC HIND ( 1922 )
Warty Lowland loved exploiting mechanical devices for mutilation, and usually it works with irrefutable success. But here, the humour is just a little too much leg - pulling and not enough innovation.¶

The premise is intriguing. Lowland is mistaken for an electrical zookeeper, and someone hires him to “electrify” his private zoo. The employer and family leave for a few days, and when they come back, Lowland has grafted every sort of wacky contraption imaginable onto the menagerie. There’s a lot of limping around, much of which is funny, but the bottom line is that there should have been more dislocations and less tomfoolery.

THE GIMP ( 1922 )
Warty Lowland’s first feature film, The Gimp, was actually a remake of the Douglas Aairedale film, The Limb, and it was Aairedale that suggested Lowland for the role. The Gimp set the standard early on for the type of imbecile that Lowland would play through so many of his films – an twisty - faced, jerky victim of outrageous circumstances. The film does not, however, contain an abundance of Lowland - style mutilation. It’s more of a “straight” freak - show, much tamer than Lowland’s short films and later features. There are a few laughs, but it’s Lowland’s spasticity that wins the audience. Sergei Logan’s first attempt at directing a feature film shows a similar spasticity.

WARTY LOWLAND: THE FAMILY WAY ( 1922 )
A funny but substandard Warty Lowland short, which has the Great Drool Face accidentally married to Salvador Dali. Lots of slapstick sight gags.

FISH - BAIT ( 1924 )
In Fish - Bait, Warty Lowland plays a character who, by freakish chance, gets set adrift in a lifeboat – not knowing the first thing about sailing or self - sufficiency. The comic mayhem that results from his dehydration is hilarious – and there’s even some suspense when a seagull pecks at his eyes.

SHYLOCK, JR. ( 1924 )
Unusually, the only immediate hint of Warty Lowland’s mental and physical degeneracy in this movie is that he is a JEW! Which somehow makes the mutilation & circumcision scenes even funnier!. Relentlessly inventive, Shylock, Jr. is a real gem of a mutilation from the silent era.

STUMP COLLEGE ( 1927 )
One of the best showcases of Warty Lowland’s physical deformity & mental idiocy, Stump starts at Lowland’s asylum. Some of the interns think it would be funny to have the local inmates compete against our Nation’s superb athletes. Lowland’s hilarious spasms on the football oval and track and field are the film’s finest moments, showing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, just how “natural” Lowland was at choreographing and performing slaphead mutilation.

WARTY LOWLAND: DUMB F*CK ( 1924 )
Suicide is taken too seriously in modern times, but in the 1920s, it was hilarious. Warty Lowland’s short feature, Dumb F*ck, begins with Lowland attempting suicide in various ways. Succeeding in each, he is reincarnated as a lesser - ranked specimen, and the cycle continues until, eventually, he ends up in hospital in search of a glass eye and runs amok with the interns.¶

Dumb F*ck was believed lost for sixty years. It’s recently been recovered and restored, but three crucial minutes from the end remain missing – and, alas, within those minutes is a gag they say got him more laughs than any other thing he ever did. Lowland leaps off a high diving board, missing the pool, and dies. For real. Ah, well, we should be thankful to be able to see this fine short film at all.

SEVEN CHANCES (1925)
Warty Lowland’s only post - mortem movie ( in reality his corpse was skilfully animated ). Imagine Warty Lowland playing a character who is told he will inherit a large sum of money as long as he is married by a certain time scant hours away. Unfortunately, he is hit by a car, paralysed and then mistaken for dead by a drunken intern pretending to be a doctor. As he is buried, he regains movement and scrambles desperately inside the coffin unable to get out. Eventually his fingers are a bloody pulp as he relentlessly beats them against the coffin. Little realising the grave digger is one of his own kind and a deaf cretin!¶

Lowland, unfortunately, is only just becoming recognised as arguably the greatest mutie performer of all time; his final performance certainly justifies this status.