Golf
	03 September 1922
	Vitagraph
	silent short
	2-reels

Director/Writer	Director/Producer/Writer	Cinematography	Editor
Tom Buckingham	Larry Semon	Reginald Lyons	?

AVAILABLE ON DVD

The daughter (Lucille Carlisle) is checking her hair in a cracked mirror when her father brings her a bunch of flowers.  She seems thrilled until neighbour Babe Hardy arrives at the door and is greeted warmly by her father.  However, her disappointment is short-lived when her suitor (Vernon Dent) arrives and begins serenading her from outside in the yard.  The annoyed father gets rid of the suitor and is then delighted to see Hardy propose to his daughter.  Babe's advances are rejected and his dignity is further damaged when a vase falls onto his head when he storms back to his room downstairs and slams the door. The father sits in a rocking chair, reading his newspaper in the upstairs room whilst continually knocking a large vase on a pedestal before finally sending it backwards out of the window, just as Babe is directly below it and attempting to whack the returning suitor over the head with a shovel.  Naturally, Babe takes the full blow of the vase and falls out of the window. A large hole is seen being sawn in the ceiling, which is later revealed to be used for sinking golf balls.  Larry Semon is swinging his golf club around whilst standing on top of a piano.  Balls are flying everywhere and when the daughter enters her room with a bunch of plates, they get hit.  The father then loses yet another vase when he enters the room with it, on account of more wayward golf balls.  The father and daughter join Larry in the next room to see just exactly what he is doing.

Downstairs, as Hardy sits down at the table he ends up with a face full of soup as Larry putts a golf ball into the hole in the ceiling and lets it drop into Babe's dish below.  More balls follow, hitting Babe on the head, and in his soup.  Babe has had enough and grabs a gun and shoots it up through the hole in his ceiling, hitting the father, and then Larry.  But it isn't enough, so Babe grabs a shotgun and blows the ceiling to bits, this time wrecking the water bucket which then falls through the floor and hits him on the head.  Babe gives chase as Larry tries to escape, eventually diving head-first out of the top floor window and into a conveniently placed wagon of hay beneath. Larry moves the wagon just in time as Babe takes a long run up and hurls himself through the window after him, but falls flat on his face.  Larry takes off, leaving Babe with a sore head in the yard.  Larry finds himself with a caddy (a bag carrier) on a golf course and puts his ball down to hit it but is interrupted by another player who insists the ball is his before playing it.  Larry places a second ball and strikes it, landing it next to two holes in the ground which are occupied by a small squirrel-like animal.  The animal repeatedy takes the ball down into its hole, and places it up through the other, confusing Larry in the process (this sequence goes on and on and on....)  After an eternity of wearing out the gag, Larry spots the creature, takes out a gun and shoots at it.  Thinking he has killed it, Larry reaches into the hole but cannot find his ball.  When his back is momentarily turned, the squirrel takes the gun and shoots Larry (you couldn't make this stuff up!)

The squirrel runs off with the ball, and hides in a tree.  Larry is determined to net the animal and waits with a sack, little realising that a skunk has taken up the offer to get inside it.  Larry proudly shows off the sack to some fellow golfers, but they all faint from the smell.  The skunk, still in the sack, crawls towards the caddy who has sat down to eat his lunch.  After the longest delayed reaction of all time, he runs away scared and hides in a upturned hollow tree.  He emerges from the other side having turned from being black to being white after encountering a bear inside. Later that afternoon Lucille Carlisle pops up again - this time as a poor golfer who cannot hit a ball.  Helpful Larry tries to show her how to do so, whilst a couple, Mr & Mrs Dub, argue behind them. A duck decides to lay an egg but the egg is mistaken for a golf ball, which Larry hits onto somebody's head.  This leads to all sorts of misunderstandings!  Babe Hardy shows up at the course, still looking for revenge over the earlier incidents (which by now have almost been forgotten about!).  He just happens to stumble upon a box of dynamite and nitroglycerin.  He cuts open a golf ball and pours some of the deadly explosive inside it before planting the ball at Larry's feet when he isn't looking.  Another golfer claims that the ball belongs to him and hits it.  When the smoke clears, he is left staggering around in his tattered clothing! Babe chases Larry back home into their yard, and is warmly greeted by the girl's father who is beating a rug on the washing line.  The father makes it clear that he intends for his daughter to marry Babe, though brother Larry is keen to get his sister hooked-up with the suitor, who has just resurfaced.  As Larry and Babe continue to hit one another with planks of wood behind the rug, the girl and her boyfriend manage to slip out and almost escape.  But Babe is wise to them and hijacks the car and drives her away with Larry and her boyfriend in hot pursuit on foot.  Eventually, Babe meets his comeupance with a train and the girl gets her guy.

Favourite bit Larry's home-made golf course is quite interesting.  In terms of least-favourite part, the squirrel really consumes far too much screen time!!

Facts •Filmed late June - early July 1922. Did you notice? •If you look closely during the opening animated title card sequence, you can see the imprint of the word "Golf" underneath the golf ball as it is spelling out the word. •When the vase falls out of the first floor window it does so at an angle, but in the next shot it is seen falling vertically.  The laws of physics would suggest this would have been impossible. •Broken vases count: 3. •Larry Semon doesn't appear until after 4½ minutes into the film. •Lucille Carlisle and Larry Semon are sister and brother in the film, though on the golf course they are strangers to one another. •Larry's home-made golf course consists of a rolled-up rug for a bunker, a bucket of water for a water hazard and an umbrella as the putting green, with a hole sawn into the floor as the cup (the hole in which you sink the ball). •The hole that Larry cuts into the floor in order to sink his golf balls is much larger than a real hole in golf. •What purpose does it serve for the animal to repeatedly steal Larry's ball?  I think that squirrel (or whatever creature it is) has suffered some psychological problems from being down in the ground for too long! •When the skunk passes the squirrel, the squirrel is obviously a prop. •Despite Babe Hardy's real-life love for the game, unfortunately he is not a participant in playing any golf in the film. •Just a split second before Babe's car is hit by the train on the crossing, there is an explosion in front of the car.  •There are eleven intertitle cards seen in the film.  They are all listed below.

	Larry Semon The son
	Oliver Hardy The neighbor
	Lucille Carlisle The daughter/ Blonde flapper
	Al Thompson Father
	Vernon Dent Suitor
	William Hauber Mr. Dub
	Eva Thatcher Mrs. Dub
	Fred Lancaster Golfer
	Pete Gordon Golfer
	Joe Baisel Golfer
	Harry DeRoy Onlooker
	Vincent McDermott [unidentified character]
	Fred Gamble [unidentified character]

UNIDENTIFIED Larry's caddy	UNIDENTIFIED Egg-head	UNIDENTIFIED Insistent golfer

Acknowledgements: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013194/ (IMDb.com) "Laurel OR Hardy" by Rob Stone (book) This page was last updated on: 10 July 2014