In a backroom of a saloon, honourable Bert Williams is regularly
attending community meetings where the evils of gambling are discussed
endlessly - but of course, all of this is just a cover-up for a gambling
joint, and Bert and his friends have taken all the necessary precautions
to avoid any kind of suspicion. Even when a cop walks in, he is at first
surprised by the sincerity and seriousness of the community meeting -
until a poker card falls out of one of Bert's sleeves, landing him in
court right away, and then in jail, where he (in a wonderful pantomime)
continues to play poker, albeit without cards and without anyone to play
with ... Above all else, this film is of historical importance
because it starred and was produced, written and directed by an
African-American for a (then) major studio, Biograph. Apart from
that though, the film is nothing really special, it's an ok slapstick
comedy that's no better or worse than the majority of slapstick comedies
filmed by white directors with white performers. It's no masterpiece, but
then only very few slapstick shorts from the 1910's were, right? Of
course, you might argue the film's based on black stereotypes, but then
again it would probably work just as well with an all-white cast. At
least Bert Williams is pretty good, too bad he didn't make more than three
comedy shorts in all his live and thus had no time to develop and finetune
his onscreen persona.
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