All that survives of Marcel Perez' last screen performance is a two-minute fragment of him dealing -- unsuccessfully -- with a toothache. After this, he couldn't act any more. He worked as a director and gag man, and died before the silent era ended, his legacy scattered and lost.
Perez came into an industry where the performers were anonymous, and gained some fame playing "Robinet" in Italy, but the character belonged to the studio. So when he came to the United States in 1916, he largely had to start all over again. As Tweedledum, Twede-Dan and Tweedy, he made some fine comedies, but the plethora of names, the fact that he worked for smaller, often poorly established studios, and led what seems to have been an irregular life that he reinvented at every interview, left a biography and corpus of work that was hard to track. In wasn't until about ten years ago that Steve Massa connected the scattered trails. Since then, he and Ben Model have curated two dvds of Perez' surviving works -- this fragment can be seen on THE MARCEL PEREZ COLLECTION vol. 2 -- as well as a book by Steve and shows featuring Perez' movies.
There were many fine screen comics during the silent era, far more than people suspect. Perez was one of them. I hope that the work of Massa & Model will stimulate others into finding more examples of his artistry, and that of the other forgotten artists of a disregarded era.
Perez came into an industry where the performers were anonymous, and gained some fame playing "Robinet" in Italy, but the character belonged to the studio. So when he came to the United States in 1916, he largely had to start all over again. As Tweedledum, Twede-Dan and Tweedy, he made some fine comedies, but the plethora of names, the fact that he worked for smaller, often poorly established studios, and led what seems to have been an irregular life that he reinvented at every interview, left a biography and corpus of work that was hard to track. In wasn't until about ten years ago that Steve Massa connected the scattered trails. Since then, he and Ben Model have curated two dvds of Perez' surviving works -- this fragment can be seen on THE MARCEL PEREZ COLLECTION vol. 2 -- as well as a book by Steve and shows featuring Perez' movies.
There were many fine screen comics during the silent era, far more than people suspect. Perez was one of them. I hope that the work of Massa & Model will stimulate others into finding more examples of his artistry, and that of the other forgotten artists of a disregarded era.
