ANM researcher Jesse Brisson submitted the following bio for this page:
At some point beginning around early 2024, I noticed a certain actor kept creeping up in Hal Roach films of the mid-late 1920s -- a younger, dark-haired male player who I initially kept seeing in Roach releases of 1927 ("The Battle of the Century," "Putting Pants on Philip," et al.). I then saw him as one of the wedding musicians in "Thundering Fleas," and on the lower level of the bus in "Bromo and Juliet." Soon after, I happened to look at a still photo from Harold Lloyd's "Speedy" (1928) and I noticed him among the "devil's wheel" riders in the Coney Island sequence. A kicker to try and identify this guy came when I saw him in another still, from "Barnum & Ringling, Inc." (the still in the Maltin/Bann book with Oliver Hardy in his deleted role as a hotel detective) among the many lobby guests. Once more, I had yet another "mystery man" irking me in the same way the likes of Bob Minford and Harry Wilde had previously...
Since I had seen this gentleman in some Our Gang or Our Gang-adjacent films, I turned to Robert Demoss of The Lucky Corner website for a possible answer. Consulting his vast myriad of information from the Roach studio payroll ledgers, Bob soon found and suggested the name Al Flores, which showed up in the ledgers for both "Thundering Fleas" and "Barnum & Ringling, Inc." and seemed to be the only hitherto unknown name that was common between both films; that name also showed up during the period that "Buried Treasure," where I had also since seen this actor, was in production. As time went on and I was able to see more films (especially with the release of the Charley Chase 1927 set), I saw this guy appear more and more -- meaning more and more credits. Further options arose from a list of productions Bob derived from the ledgers that he could confidently determine Al Flores worked on, which included a number of films I had already spotted the actor in question in.
Finally, in an attempt to definitely ID this man as Al Flores, I thought of three scenes I had since seen this actor in that had lots of recognizable other players -- the train scene in "Duck Soup," the first ship scenes of "A One Mama Man," the bus full of upper-deck passengers laughing at Charley in "Forgotten Sweeties" -- and I inquired of Bob if, via the ledgers, we could narrow down the days he worked on these productions via the other extras and bit players present on the filming dates in which all of those players would have all worked during each production. Sure enough, Bob was able to confirm that in those three "samples," Al Flores indeed worked on all the days the players he shared scenes and shots with in each production also worked, and that he was the only name not already identified that did so.
So we now know his name: Al Flores. Finding his biographical info, however, is... a different matter. So far, I've only found an entry in the 1929 Los Angeles City Directory for Alfonse Flores, an actor, living at 634 2-5 North Sycamore Avenue. Unfortunately, I have so far been unable to use this to my advantage to further connect any biographical dots, via census records or surrounding city directories. Based on his appearance and his surname, I would assume he's of perhaps Spanish or maybe even Italian descent -- most certainly Latin.
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