Comedy legs

Back when I was a wee slip of a lad (A very long time ago) I used to watch silent movies from the Mack Sennett era in the 1920’s and 30’s. See an example posted on Youtube here. In the ‘Chase’ scenes there was a stylised art of running; An exaggerated double take followed by a stylised grab at whatever headgear the person is wearing; in turn followed by wildly theatrical pumping of elbows and knees with a skidding about turn. Oliver Hardy of Laurel and Hardy was next to Chaplin, one of the most skilled exponents of this art.

Now I never thought I’d ever see these movements in real life but I just did today. I’m patrolling past a one hour limited waiting layby outside a shop to see a car that has been there longer than it should. I’m just about to start logging in the details when a guy exits a house, takes one horrified look at me, grabs at his baseball cap, skid turns and runs inside in the aforementioned fashion shouting “I’m moving! I’m moving!” I was so curious as to what he’d do next that I stopped what I was doing.

Next thing chummy runs out of the house pursued by spouse, I swear, both making the best slapstick movements since Charlie Chaplin retired. He does this curious arms and legs pumping run, drops his car keys, goes on four steps, double takes, dashes back to pick them up, almost crashes into his panicking wife, she picks the keys up and they almost have a clash of heads; next he drops the keys again, she almost falls into the hedge, he gets to the car, drops the keys which nearly go down a drain cover; then fumbles them under the car before discovering he’s got the wrong keys. He runs back inside his house, almost bowling his wife over in the process and returns to the car before finally jumping in and driving away.

I was so busy trying not to laugh I clean forgot to book him.