Hearts and Planets (1915)

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Chester Conklin | Minta Durfee | Walter Wright (Director)

Rest of cast:

Josef Swickard | Grover Ligon | Glen Cavender | Mack Sennett | Ted Edwards | Mack Sennett (Producer)

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“Hearts and Planets”

One-reel Keystone farce of original conception and amusing treatment.

Reviewed by Louis Reeves Harrison.

Cast:
Visible Star — Chester Conklin
Invisible Star — Mack Sennett
Three Astronomers and a girl.

An astronomical farce, Hearts and Planets, is amusing enough to please the average audience, and it has the merit of departing from the stereotyped in its development. It does not, however, give Chester Conklin the exact opportunity suited to his peculiarities. He excites laughter by sheer stupidity. The inanity of his portrayals, their weak-mindedness, the inferiority of which his characters are not conscious, which are, however, obvious to the audience in his amusing self-revelations, constitute his art. The ludicrous side of his acting would be more pronounced if he essayed the role of an important man, a self-important one, trying to make a profound impression, in sublime ignorance of his own condition and of what others think of him. Mack Sennett might try his star in such a part to advantage.

Chester Conklin in Hearts and Planets courts the daughter of an astronomer. He manages an elopement, but the girl’s father chances to see him through a powerful telescope. For this Conklin attempts novel retaliation. He carries a formidable array of fireworks to the observatory and sets them off as the astronomer is engaged in star-gazing. The astronomer telephones to some fellow-scientists and they gather at his observatory to witness some remarkable phenomena in the heavens. There are rockets, roman-candles and pin-wheels in the sky, as if the entire universe was in a state of eruption instead of a few nations on earth. The ingenious suitor and the girl are enjoying themselves so well that they become careless, and a human hand and slow match are injected into the field of observation.

Discovery that they have been fooled sends the three astronomers to the roof in vengeful mood, but they are immediately and very accurately bombarded with rockets and stars. The girl finally effects a rescue with a stream of water from a fire hose, and reconciliation follows. It is mere farce — it is simply to laugh and that is all there is to it — but it is refreshing in the presentation of new effects, and it will brighten the variety of any exhibitor’s program.

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Scene from Hearts and Planets (Keystone)

Collection: Moving Picture World, March 1915