PRESERVED FILMS

Way Out West (1920)
Production Company: Hank Mann Comedies. Producer: Morris R. Schlank. Distributor: Arrow Film Company. Director: Charles Parrott. Cast: Hank Mann ("A Tenderfoot"), Madge Kirby ("Little Miss Innocence"), Vernon Dent ("A Rip-Roaring Bad Man"), James Parrott ("A Crooked Sheriff"), Fred Lancaster ("The Saloon Keeper"), James T. Kelly, Jess Weldon. Transfer Note: Scanned from a 35mm print preserved by the Library of Congress. New Music: Ben Model. Running Time: 21 minutes.

Hank Mann is considered the comedian’s comedian of the silent era with his underplayed style and dry wit. His trademark look consisted of a brush mustache, a bowl haircut and a bashful manner. He began at Keystone in 1913, and after he made a name for himself there moved over to star in L-Ko Comedies. Returning to Sennett, he then headlined in Fox Comedies before he began this series for producer Morris Schlank in 1919. In addition to this series for Hank, moneyman Schlank also produced shorts with Eddie Barry, Vera Reynolds and Billy Bletcher, as well as western features with Al Hoxie and action films directed by J.P. McGowan.

Schlank used an independent distributor, the Arrow Film Co., to get his product to the public. They handled all kinds of comedy shorts, serials, sports pictorials and features. Arrow morphed into Rayart Productions, and in 1930 that was reorganized as Monogram Pictures, which became beloved for its B films with Bela Lugosi and the Bowery Boys.

The Arrow series for Hank started as one-reelers but soon expanded to two. The shooting of these comedies was non-stop from 1919 to 1921, and the February 14, 1920 issue of the Exhibitors Herald described the process:

In order to produce twenty-six two reels comedies this year, Morris Schlank, the producer, is working two companies with two directors. Just as soon as one comedy is completed Mr. Mann steps into the picture that has been started by the second director, while the first director cuts and edits the completed picture.

Over forty comedies were completed during that three-year period, and although the films have no official director’s credits the trade magazines list Charles Parrott (a.k.a. Charley Chase), Tom Gibson, Herman C. Raymaker, Al Santell and Robert Kerr as being behind the megaphone at various times. Thanks to trade magazine photos of Charles Parrott directing Hank on Way Out West’s big saloon set, it appears that he helmed this one. At this time Parrott was a busy comedy director for hire—in demand with comics like Billy West, Mr. & Mrs. Carter De Haven, and Lloyd Hamilton. He had started writing and directing while at Keystone, and had previously worked with Hank Mann on some 1917 Fox Comedies like There’s Many a Fool. Parrott would assume his Charley Chase moniker and start making his still popular comedies for Hal Roach in 1924.

Two of the mainstays for Hank’s series were his heavy and second banana Vernon Dent, and his leading lady Madge Kirby. Discovered by Mann while singing in a café, Dent moved on to starring in Folly Comedies for the Pacific Film Co, and by the time he joined the Mack Sennett studio in 1923 he was becoming one of the rocks of early screen comedy. Dent could always be counted on to provide the comic gravity to counterpoint the antics of clowns such as Harry Langdon and Billy Bevan, and he would continue to do this well into the sound era for The Three Stooges, Andy Clyde, and others at the Columbia Pictures Shorts Department until 1957.

The British-born Madge Kirby was Hank’s resident damsel in distress. She had come from the stage when she joined the Biograph Company in 1912. She moved on and became one of the most prolific comedy leading ladies of the screen—working for Vogue, Imp, American, Fox and La Salle Comedies. Although starting out as a brunette, somewhere along the way she became a blonde. Right before working with Hank she spent a couple years in a similar capacity at Vitagraph supporting Larry Semon. Kirby was warm and plucky and seemed like she should have moved on to greater use in the 1920’s, but she drops off the movie map at the end of this Hank Mann series.

Also in the cast are the silent comedy regulars James T. Kelly, Fred Lancaster, Jess Weldon and Charles Parrott’s baby brother James as the corrupt sheriff. James had his own career as a star of Hal Roach shorts (as Paul Parrott), and as a frequent writer and director for Laurel & Hardy. After the shorts in this series were made they remained in circulation for a number of years, and it appears that Hank’s trademark persona and make-up were under contract to producer Schlank while they played. So during that time he worked as a gag man for Lloyd Hamilton, Jack White Comedies and Christie Comedies, where he often turned up in funny cameos. Eventually he was able to appear again in his old comedy get-up, but he continued gag writing on features such as Kid Boots and The Better 'Ole (both 1926). In the sound era Hank kept busy turning up in bits in movies, soundies, and television shows until 1960.

—Steve Massa, film historian and author of Rediscovering Roscoe: The Films of “Fatty” Arbuckle, Slapstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy, Lame Brains and Lunatics: The Good, the Bad, and the Forgotten of Silent Comedy, and Lame Brains and Lunatics 2: More Good, Bad and Forgotten of Silent Comedy.

About the Preservation:
The Library of Congress preserved Way Out West from a 35mm nitrate print, gifted by the American Film Institute in 1987. Film-to-film preservation was funded by an NFPF grant in 2007, as was the scanning and digitization of the preservation print in 2022.

About the Music:
Ben Model is one of the nation’s leading silent film accompanists, performing on both piano and theatre organ. Over the past 44 years, he has created and performed thousands of live scores for silent films at universities, museums, and historic theaters. He is a resident film accompanist at the Museum of Modern Art (NY) and at the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theatre, and accompanies silents at classic film festivals around the USA and internationally. Ben’s Blu-ray/DVD label Undercrank Productions works with archives and collectors to bring undiscovered gems of silent cinema to fans. He is the producer and co-founder of The Silent Clowns Film Series, now celebrating its 27th season in NYC, and is also a Visiting Professor of Film at Wesleyan University, where he teaches a course on silent film history. His book The Silent Film Universe was published in 2025.