There are few American comedies of note that have survived from the first decade of last century and it wasn't until the year 1910 that the American companies began to experiment with character clowns in the European style. Vitagraph would discover America's first proper comedy star when they introduced the masses to John Bunny (1863-1915). Bunny was an exceptionally popular stage actor and manager before this inception, replete with unusual foresight, Bunny perceived the potential of moving pictures. At first he had some difficulty imparting his wisdom, even given his undeniable genius, persuading Vitagraph to accept his services; but in a matter of months he would establish himself as a major box-office draw. Bunny certainly had the countenance to inspire a laugh (a look that would help carve out the future career of Roscoe Arbuckle) he was a stout and jolly fellow with a jowly and irresistibly comic face; he appeared decades older than his actual physical age - it would not be until the actor was a seasoned 46 that he would make his first films for Vitagraph. And Bunny would meet his match in usual comrade Flora Finch (1867-1940), who often portrayed the vinegary wife who frustrated his aspirations to amorous adventures.
It was Bunny's popularity that would launch American film comedy for the first time in the European market. The success of the John Bunny films would inspire new confidence among American makers of comic films. After 1910 comedy stars began to proliferate, Vitagraph would enjoy further successes with the light domestic comedies of the duo Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew as well as lowbrow one-reelers featuring Billy Quirk and an English comic from the Fred Karno music-hall troupe, Jimmy Aubrey. Essanay Studios' long-running Snakeville Comedy series introduced characters who belonged in a wild West comic strip, one of which was Augustus Carney. Essanay would score its greatest comic triumph a few years later in 1915, when it captured Charlie Chaplin from Mack Sennett's Keystone Company, also promoted a well-received series between the years 1914 and 1916 starring the inimitable Wallace Beery as Sweedie.
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| The idiosyncratic Billy Quirk with Norma Talmadge in Lee Begg's 1914 three-reel short, Egyptian Mummy |
Comedies and other stars proved highly effective ammunition in the cutthroat industrial battles of the pre-war period. Character comedy had become a staple of America's silent cinema. It would be taken to all new height of folk art, anarchism and inspired lunacy all courtesy of Mack Sennett's Keystone studio.