Fisticuffs

Lupino Lane must fight the imported boxing champion, lest the vile squire call in he father’s mortgage and repossess the village smithy.There are lots of silent comedies that concern themselves with boxing, including those by chaplin and Keaton. Lupin Lane’s is set in what looks ot be Regency England, when the practice of two men getting together and hitting each other until one was unconscious was first considered a skilled sport. In the hands of Lane, of course, it’s pure farce, helped along by the melodramatic tropes that surround the match, and Lane’s shenanigans as one of the great acrobatic pratfallers of the era. Lots of fun.