The comedy team Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew score another domestic hit—and I do mean hit! When her obnoxious brother comes for an extended visit, her husband must find a way to deal with his antics. Fortunately, he is friends with a boxer…
Home Media Availability: Stream courtesy of the NFPF.
The $50 Knockout
During the silent era, there was a very real competition between crowd-pleasing slapstick and more sophisticated forms of funny. Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew were co-writers, co-directors and co-stars who were at the forefront of developing domestic comedies, which can be seen as the building blocks of the classic sitcom. Slapstick may be considered the default form of silent comedy these days but the influence of the Drews and other domestic comics is still being felt.
I am an enormous fan of the duo. They generally kept to realistic comedy setups but would sometimes dip their toes into wilder satire (such as a groom contemplating death upon discovering that his bride had developed a babytalk habit in Miss Sticky-Moufie Kiss). By Might of His Right was one of their last releases for the Vitagraph studio, where they had built their cinematic star power, and it is one of their realistic stories.
The film opens with a young wife (Mrs. Sidney Drew) being delighted by her college boy brother (Donald Macbride, yes, the venerable character actor) and his puppy-like antics. The kid is all about rally songs and sports and school spirit. (They are not named in the title cards but for the sake of clarity, I will call them by their real given names, Lucille and Donald.)
Henry (Mr. Sidney Drew) arrives at his home and is quickly targeted by his young brother-in-law as a demonstration model for football tackles and boxing knockouts. He also steals Henry’s cigars and cigarettes, hogs the best chair, snatched the newspaper, flirts with the maid and generally treats his host as a second-class citizen. At least it will be a short stay? No, he plans to spend his entire school vacation with Henry and Lucille.
Henry is stunned and horrified at this disastrous turn of events but finally has an idea the next day. His good friend Tony Trexel has become interested in boxing, even building his own ring and keeping professional fighters around the place to practice fisticuffs.
Fifty dollars cash in the right hands, a few words with Tony and Henry is able to announce to Lucille and Donald that they have been invited to a boxing party. What fun! Donald is keen for the event—until Tony announces that they need someone to volunteer to fight the Battler, one of the resident boxers. Suddenly, the kid’s bravado evaporates but Henry quickly agrees to step into the ring.
Henry’s money has purchased victory and Lucille mocks Donald for being such a coward. Donald, for his part, sees Henry pummel his opponent and realizes that teasing him is risking the same treatment. He cuts his visit short and flees the house, leaving Henry at peace and Lucille delighted when she learns about her husband’s prank.
All in all, a light bit of fun with a good time had by all—except Donald, of course.
I quite enjoyed this picture, as I do most Drew films, because of its feather light touch and good-natured humor. When the boxing element was introduced, I half-expected Henry and Donald to duke it out in the ring but that would have been the sort of knockabout comedy that the Drews specifically avoided. Henry’s victory comes from his brains and some money well spent. (And it was no small sum, either. The equivalent of $1,500 USD at the time of this writing.) New cigars: 50 cents. Bribing a boxer, 50 dollars. Driving away your obnoxious sports bro brother-in-law: priceless.
The Drews had a May-December marriage and the difference in their ages was not brought up overtly but it is an unspoken running theme in many of their comedies. In Foxtrot Finesse, Sidney is exhausted by energetic Lucille’s dance craze and By Might of His Right plays around with the notion of an older man hoping for quiet domestic peace, while his much younger wife is swept up in her brother’s enthusiasm for sports. Her problem is not malice but misplaced enthusiasm that quickly returns to its proper place by the end of the picture after seeing that her brother is a blowhard.
While the exact circumstances and fashions may have changed since 1915, the basic setup of the film is universal and timeless. Forced to host an annoying houseguest? An annoying in-law houseguest? Having to deal with the obnoxiousness of an overbearing sports fan? That’s going to be funny any place and at any time.
I was already familiar with the charm and personas of the Drews: Sidney, neurotic with a propensity to comically languish at the slightest inconvenience before deploying a passive-aggressive scheme. Lucille, wild, enthusiastic and ready to jump overboard at the slightest temptation but no pushover. A funny pair! But I must also praise young Donald Macbride. If you know Macbride from his many, many talkie character roles, you will remember that he was generally on the receiving end of an exasperating situation, so it’s fun to see him giving the headaches instead of getting them.
In his early twenties when the film was made, Macbride kept pace with his veteran co-stars and earned praise for his performance. Motion Picture Magazine gushed, “Here is a lad who is fast coming to the front as a champion comedian.” They were right at that.
By Might of His Right was thought lost for decades before a surviving copy emerged in New Zealand and was restored and repatriated. Every recovered film is a triumph but rediscovered Drews are particularly sweet for me. (Diplomatic Henry is another formerly lost title recently recovered, may there be many, many more.)
This is a quintessential Drew comedy: a small domestic predicament becomes a disaster to poor Sidney and he must scheme to save himself. And, like all their best work, the charm of the picture hinges on the very real affection of the couple. This would be an excellent introduction to the Drews’ softer, quieter, no-seltzer-fights brand of comedy, so if you have never seen one of their pictures, this film is a good choice.
Where can I see it?
Stream for free courtesy of the National Film Institute as part of their Lost and Found: New Zealand collection. If you collect physical media, other titles discovered in New Zealand were released on DVD as part of the Lost and Found: American Treasures from the New Zealand Film Archive set. (By Might of His Right is not part of that collection.)
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