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Clip description
Tommy Dodds (George Wallace) demonstrates his storytelling skills to an unseen audience of musicians in the orchestra pit, during rehearsals for a new show. He is a stagehand, but he says he learned to dance while working on a pig farm with his father. He then shows his dance skills.
Curator’s notes
Frank Thring’s early films were largely just photographed stage shows, but this clip at least demonstrates what made Wallace such a hit with audiences throughout the 1920s. His make-up and gestures are still too big for the camera, but his timing never misses. Wallace was always a pretty ‘clean’ act, in comparison with ‘blue’ comedians like Roy Rene, partly because his characters were always innocents, almost childlike. Look at clip one from Harmony Row (1933) – when he’s asked his age, he says 'eleven’, before correcting himself. Many of his gestures are modelled on the movements of a small boy, typically one who’s about to be scolded.
