Amoureux de la femme à barbe (1909) User Reviews

Definitely Not One Of Max' Best

[boblipton · 3/10 · 31 January 2019]

Schoolboy Max Linder is in love with the bearded lady, so he does what many of us used dream of doing: running away to join the circus. It's an extraordinarily small circus, and with Max, there are two performers.

Max Linder was the first comedy superstar of the screen, and very talented, but every once in a while he turned out a stinker, and this is one. Although this appears to have been cut down considerably, it's basically a bizarre set-up, followed by a comedy chase sequence. Comedy chases were very popular in this period, but there wasn't much variation in them to offer great amusement. Dressing Max in a mouse suit doesn't do it for me, nor, I suspect, many in the audience.

If you wish to see this for yourself, the Eye Institute has posted a copy to their YouTube site.

It just isn't funny....

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 26 January 2016]

The French actor, Max Linder, is considered one of the early greats of silent comedy. Charlie Chaplin repeatedly praised Linder's work and credited him with making him the screen comic he became. That being said, I've see nearly all of Linder's surviving films and see they they fall into two categories--the funny and the terribly unfunny. Sadly, "Max in Love With a Bearded Lady" clearly falls into the second category...it's not funny...not one bit.

During much of the film, the viewer really has no idea what's going on. There aren't many intertitle cards and from Linder's gyrations, it's still very hard to understand what's going on in the film. Inexplicably, Max thinks the chubby bearded lady is hot stuff until he accidentally pulls off her fake beard. And if you think that is funny...well that is the only POSSIBLY funny moment.