User Reviews

Ike is in a fierce battle with Mustang Pete for the hand of a local woman. She agrees to go out with Ike and is about to get on his horse, when Pete pulls up with a horse and buggy. Ike is devastated, but as luck would have it, someone who wants to sell his car pulls up. For 2 horses and change, he's back in business and goes down the road to wait for Pete and his beloved. When they show up, true to form, she dumps Pete and gets in the car. Things are going fine for Ike, until the car dies, then it's all downhill...

Back in the very early days of slapstick comedy, Augustus Carey had reasonable success with his Alibi Ike character. However, few of his films remain and he's mostly forgotten today. Much of it is because his career wasn't terribly long....and according to IMDB much of this was due to his own mistakes as a star.

Ike and Mustang are rivals for the affection of Betty. To try to outdo Mustang, Ike trades his horses for an auto. Unfortunately, the thing soon breaks down and Ike gets out and tries to fix it. Even more unfortunately, it soon takes off without him...leaving poor Betty being tossed about on a cross-country wild car ride.

This film differs slightly from the IMDB summary, as there is no scene involving the bar---at least not in the copy I saw. It also is not especially funny nor memorable and you can't help but think that they could have done more with the story to make it funny.

This is part of the Slapstick Encyclopedia Vol. 1 (The Early Years), which is a treat for movie fans. Much of the interest in these old movies is viewing the actors as people, not characters. It's interesting how they and their technology looked three generations ago.

By the way, some of the other shorts in this anthology are not in the IMDb.

This is a fairly good short comedy that makes reasonable use of its characters and possibilities. Some of it is a little too silly, but a lot of it works pretty well. The best laughs in it probably come more from the situation itself than from any of the specific gags.

Alkali Ike seems to have been a rather popular character for a while. In this feature, he and Mustang Pete get into a rivalry over a woman, and the two begin a one-upmanship battle while trying impress her, with consequences that are generally amusing. There's nothing especially creative, but it has an easygoing style that makes it pleasant to watch. Its probably a little better than average for the short comedies of its era.

Television sitcoms' format, a main staple for TV programming, was inspired by cinema's first comedy series, the "Alkali Ike" comedies. Essanay Studio's co-owner, Gilbert "Bronco Billy" Anderson wrote a series of comedies after earlier directing vaudeville actor Augustus Carney in a handful of shorts called "Hank and Lank." Carney had developed a character named Alkali Ike, a folksy, small guy who always gets the short end of the stick. Anderson, being a huge Western genre director working for Essanay's branch studio in California, loved Carney's Ike and placed the character in the rural West.

Anderson directed the eight-film series, the first real successful comedy series in cinema. The opening Alkali Ike short, May 1911's "Alkali Ike's Auto," was an instant success. Essanay was so pleased with the series that, in a first, it merchandised action toys depicting the Alkali Ike likeness. In "Alkali Ike's Auto," one of the first instance where a cameraman speeds up a film by cranking his camera faster than normal, produced a hilarious segment where actress Maraget Joslin, playing the love interest between Alkali Ike and Mustang Pete (Harry Todd), is seen in an uncontrollable car racing down a mountainside.

During the Alkali Ike series, Carney had appeared in numerous "Bronco Billy" films as well as other Essanay movies. But for Carney nothing approached the success of the Alkali Ike character.

Carney's last Alkali Ike episode was released in January 1914: "The Awakening at Snakeville." The actor felt the studio would reward him with a higher salary. When Essanay refused to give him a raise, Carney went to Universal Film Manufacturing Company (Universal Pictures). Carney had to change his character to Universal Ike since Essanay owned the Alkali Ike name. His new studio produced 16 Ike films in 1914. But his movies never approached the popularity as the Essanay's. Carney's demands for a higher salary got him promptly fired at Universal. He was able to get roles in several shorts and four feature films at other studios. But by 1916, after appearing in a Raoul Walsh-directed film, Carney left the film industry for good. Four years later he died at the age of 50.

As an aside, when Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander first broke into the majors for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1911, his teammates gave him the nickname "Alkali Ike."