Max Speaks English (1914) User Reviews

Silent Pictures

[boblipton · 10/10 · 18 April 2009]

Before Charlie Chaplin, the most popular comedian of the silent cinema was Max Linder, a French actor whom Chaplin called 'The Professor'. In literally hundreds of short comedies from 1905 through the early 1920s, he acted, wrote and directed hundreds of short subjects, usually playing, variations on the Parisian boulevardier courting a beautiful girl.

In this one, one of his best, he meets a girl on a train, but, alas, she is English and they don't have a common language. However, Max finds a way to communicate with her, mostly by drawings -- perfectly decent ones, I hasten to add. The effect is very charming and the whole thing ends with a couple of excellent gags.

Rather charming.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 7 January 2012]

Max Linder was one of the earliest screen comedians. However, his style bore little similarity to the slapstick comedy of the day. Frankly, the slapstick humor was generally pretty crude--relying on pratfalls, punching, kicking and the like. By contrast, much of Linder's comedy was graceful and involved situations--situations where the story was dominant, not the laughs.

Here in "L'Anglais Tel Que Max le Parle", Max meets a pretty English lady on a train. The problem is that neither knows the other language, so they converse through pantomime as well as drawing pictures. It's all rather sweet and there is no attempt to gets laughs during this portion of the film. The two part and Max promises to look for her in the place she is staying at near the Eiffel Tower. Later, when Max arrives, the two instantly hit it off--but it's at work and soon Max hides so she won't get in trouble. See the film and see the cute and moderately funny ending.

If you are looking for belly laughs, look further. However, for a very sweet and sophisticated story, you can't do much better than this one. Well made and engaging.

Try a little tenderness

[happytrigger-64-390517 · 8/10 · 4 March 2022]

Another short by Max Linder, but not a pure slapstick, rather romantic in its first part, then some usual great gags by ML. Notice there are no intertitles though it's the encounter of the French seducer and an English pretty young woman. They understand each other with drawings, and it's sometimes really romantic. As usual in ML movies, women are naturally charming and smiling. Max Linder's vision of human nature is enthusiastically entertaining. Hanx again.