BULLS EYE / REELCRAFT COMEDIES (1919-1921)

SHORTCUT TO FILMOGRAPHY

Bulls Eye and Reelcraft released on a states rights basis, which means that there were no specific release dates. Also, there are often no surviving copyright materials in the Library of Congress, indicating that the company submitted frames of volatile nitrate film. Because of the shortage of confirmable information about these elusive films, the following checklist should be regarded as a starting point for a more detailed filmography.

The Bulls Eye Film Co. was founded in December, 1918 by Milton L. Cohen with Nat Spitzer as studio manager. The company immediately engaged some of the era's top "second-rung" comics, headed by Chaplin imitator Billy West, fresh from a successful series at King Bee. Other talent during the firm's brief lifetime included Gale Henry, Leo White, Texas Guinan, Alice Howell, Milburn Moranti and the prolific Billy Franey. The first director general of the company was Charles Parrott, who as Charley Chase, would later find fame with his own series at Hal Roach Studios.

The company would also pick up unreleased shorts to beef up the schedule, such as Selig's "Napoleon and Sally" series of monkey comedies and Stan Laurel's unsold pilot film, "Lucky Dog".

Bulls Eye soon ran into litigation when in July 1919, Billy West (born Roy B. Weissberg) was sued and counter-sued over breach of contract. West had fulfilled just three months of his four-year Bulls Eye contract when he bolted to Chicago to make shorts for the Emerald Motion Picture Co. Bulls Eye's solution was to sue West and hire Harry Mann to play Billy West playing Charlie Chaplin.

The temporary loss of West did not slow Bulls Eye and by August the company had five companies and was considering opening a second studio in San Francisco. The studio's Gale Henry comedies were so popular that a comic strip series was created and syndicated to one hundred newspapers west of Denver.

Around September, 1919, the company pioneered a satiric newsreel, "The Weakly Indigestion". Each reel kidded current events of the day, a concept that survives today as the "Weekend Update" segment of U.S. television's "Saturday Night Live".

Bulls Eye's glory days were soon to end when, in March, 1920, the company was merged with Bee Hive Film Exchanges, the Interstate Film Co., and Emerald (rendering the West suit moot). Cohen was given the position of General Sales Manager and the new president was R. C. Cropper, formerly of Cropper Distributing and Bee Hive. The acquisition of Bee Hive and Interstate gave the company exchanges in New York and the major midwestern cities, but the release product would still be primarily that of Bulls Eye's with the addition of the Emerald comedies.

The company survived for two years as Reelcraft when it went into receivership and sold its negatives to the Export and Import Film Co. According to Kalton C. Lahue and Sam Gill in "Clown Princes and Court Jesters", Reelcraft met it's demise when the profitable series (those of Alice Howell and Billy Franey) were outnumbered by the money-losing series. After one final mention of the dissolution of Reelcraft in the November 18, 1922 issue of "Moving Picture World", the company passed into oblivion.

Bulls Eye/Reelcraft comedies represent such an amalgam of producers, directors and stars, it is foolhardy to make blanket statements about the company's comedic philosophy. Surely the firm's finest hour came when Charles Parrott agreed to be director general. At the age of 27, Parrott was a comedy veteran with battle stripes from Keystone, Fox, King Bee and L-Ko. He was a master of gag construction and his surviving Billy West/ Harry Mann comedies are as good as any being made at the time (it helped that Chaplin was in the midst of a creative drought). The multilayered house set in "Ship Ahoy" (1919) obviously influenced Buster Keaton (see "The High Sign") and other comedians who essentially duplicated it to create ever more ingenious chases. It is hard to believe that Parrott didn't also influence Gale Henry, as the two were to collaborate well into the sound era.

Another unique note struck in the later films of the otherwise undistinguished Billy Franey was a trend toward surrealism. At least two of the films, "The Cameraman" and "The Thief" (both 1920), are self-reflexive, acknowledging the audience and the camera and integrating them into the fade-out gag. The director of these films was Grover Jones, who never again showed any propensity for this kind of experimentation.

As comedy buffs discover more of the surviving Bulls Eye/ Reelcrafts, other surprises and trends will certainly reveal themselves. The few examples screened at the 1994 Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone were tantalizing enough to guarantee future investigation by film scholars worldwide.

FILMOGRAPHY complied by Robert Farr and Joe Moore.

BILLY WEST COMEDIES (2 reels)

1919: A Rolling Stone, He's In Again, Ship Ahoy, The Chauffeur, Lured, Out of Tune, Coppers and Scents, Flirts, Her First False Hare, Her Tender Feet, Soaked, Haunted Hearts, A Scented Romance, Hot Dogs, Blue Blood and Bevo

1920: Bone Dry, $1000 Short, A Rural Romance, Mustered Out, Strike Breaker, Happy Days, The Dreamer, Hands Up, What Next?, Going Straight, The Artistic Beauty Shop, Hard Luck, Brass Buttons, Masquerader, The Dodger, Foiled, Cleaning Up

HARRY MANN REPLACING BILLY WEST (2 reels)

1919: One Night Only, Don't Park Here

SATIRICAL NEWSREEL (1 reel)

1919: The Weakly Indigestion

GALE HENRY COMEDIES: (2 reels)

1919: The Wild Woman, Stung, The Farmerette, Cash, Her Honor, the Scrub Lady, The Slavey, Sweet Cookie, Ham An-, This Way Out

1920: Heirlooms, Help!, The Movies, The Champeen, Kids, Chicken a la King, Don't Chase Your Wife, Her First Flame, Pants

NAPOLEON AND SALLY COMEDIES (1 reel)

1919: As Others See Us, One Big Night, Their First Flivver, Dreamy Chinatown, Film Fairies, Stopping Bullets, Caught with the Goods, Perils of the Beach, The Deserter, Behind the Scenes, Circus Brides

L.J. BURRUD (SUNSET) SCENICS (1 reel)

1919: Legends of the Wilderness

1920: The Mountain That Was God, The Wind, Goddess Lake, Chelan

TEXAS GUINAN WESTERNS (2 reels)

1919: My Lady Robin Hood, Letters of Fire

1920: A Moonshine Feud, The White Squaw, The Night Rider, The Wild Cat, Desert Vulture, Girl of the Rancho, Not Guilty, Outwitted

ALICE HOWELL COMEDIES (2 reels)

1920: Cinderella Cinders, Her Lucky Day, Her Bargain Day, Rubes and Romance, Lunatics in Politics, Good Night Nurse, Convict's Happy Bride, Squirrel Time, A Wooden Legacy

MILBURN MORANTI COMEDIES (2 reels)

1920: Jealousy, Simp and Satan, Wild, Wild West, Double Trouble, Lazy Lem, Bungalow Bungle, Barber Shop, Gossip, Installment Plan, Love, Where Are Thou?

MATTY ROUBERT (Romances of Youth) (2 reels)

1920: She's A Vamp, Circus Days, A Bold Bad Pirate, Summer Days, Sunshine

BILLY FRANEY COMEDIES (1 reel)

1920: The Dog Catcher, The Paper Hanger, The Water Plug, Hard Cider, The Hasher, Play Hooky, The Professor, Getting His Goat, Fixing Lizzie, Dry Cleaned, Kidnapped (or Kidnapper), The Snitch, Moonshiner Number 13, Pile Driver, The Pest Undressed, Kid, Live Wire, The Glutton, Tarred and Feathered, Referee, In and Out, The Landlady, The Moocher, The Bullfighter, The Bath Dub, The Camera Man ,The Thief

1921: The Sleuth, The Chiropodist, The Chef, In the Trenches, The Janitor, The Plumber

ROYAL COMEDIES

1920: Aug. 15 Buggins (Leon Errol), Aug. 30 Snakes (Billy B. Van), Sept. 15 The Plucky Hoodoo (Billy B. Van), Sept. 30 or Nov. 10 Where are Your Husbands? (Billy B. Van), Oct. 15 When the Cat's Away (All Star Cast), Oct. 30 Married to Order (Charles [Chase] Parrott, Rosemary Theby, Oliver Hardy), Nov. 20 Oh Buoy (Sammy Burns), Dec. 10 I'll Say He Forgot (Otis Harlan)

ALLADIN COMEDIES (released as SUN-LITE COMEDIES in Oct. 1921, 1 reel)

1921: Tuning Up, Headwaiter's Heart, Washed Ou,t Hot Cakes, Scream Street, Lion Liars

BUD AND HIS BUDDIES (1 reel)

1921: Mixed Twist Wives, Flirty Hubby, Winning Winnie, Poor Fiddler, Cuba, Sour Gun Bosco, Nifty Jippers

SUN-LITE COMEDIES (2 reels, for additional titles, see Alladin Comedies)

1921: Baby! Baby!!, Bride and Broom (Billy Quirk), Mother's Lamb, Don't Mary, The Lucky Dog (For more about the history of this film, notable for the first joint appearance of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, see Bo Berglund's article in "Griffithiana" #38-39).

PARAGON COMEDIES (1 reel)

1921: Tacks and Taxes, Artist's Muddle Goof, Lady Bug, Fowl Bird, Under Dog, Snip, Cop Blue Jay, Yap

MIRTH COMEDIES (2 reels)

1921: Here He Is, Oh! Daddy Sweet Daddy, Chick Chick, Vacation