I'm Insured (1916)
*** (out of 4)
Very funny animated short from Gaumont America and Harry Palmer. A man walks past a restaurant where he sees a cook making some pancakes. The man is broke so he must try and get some money so he plans on hurting himself in order to collect his insurance. Of course, things don't go as planned. This early bit of animation runs just three-minutes and the joke is rather obvious but I thought the thing was so lively and the one-liners so good that you really can't help but have a very good time with it. I liked that the film started off showing Palmer drawing up a scene and then the "animation" part kicks in. I also liked how it was drawn like the images you'd see in a newspaper and we got the same type of lines that you'd see written for the dialogue in a newspaper. What really makes the film so special is that our lead character is just so likable that you can't help but get a kick out of him trying to hurt himself. This includes jumping from a building, letting a steamroller hit him and of course trying to get hit by a car. The dark humor certainly makes for some interesting laughs and especially the final line of the movie.