Die Wohnungsnot

A collection of five silent comedy shorts co-starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Buster Keaton, and produced by their own Comique Film Company: THE BELL BOY (1918), THE BUTCHER BOY (1917), OUT WEST (1918), MOONSHINE (1918), and THE HAYSEED (1919). Volume One of a two-volume DVD series from Kino Video. Musical score by the Alloy Orchestra.

The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.

A runaway train speeds down the track.

The photographer sends miss Ophelia a dozen photographs of her in different poses. Selecting the best one, she presents it to her favorite boarder, Billy, who does not think much of it and who gets very indignant when it is compared with the photo of his sweetheart. Miss Ophelia goes up to her room in tears and tells her faithful maid, Belinda, that her heart is broken. Belinda goes down and forcibly tells Billy what she thinks of him. Miss Ophelia resolves on suicide, because no one seems to love her. Belinda gets back in time to prevent this and, to divert her mistress, she suggests that they go together to a beauty specialist. Arriving there, both receive attention. Miss Ophelia gets a new complexion, while Belinda gets new teeth. Both invest in new gowns and dresses and the transformation is complete. At supper time, the boarders are all astounded.

In this sophisticated romantic comedy, healing waters are the cover for an extramarital affair that “cures” the infertility problems of a childless couple.

At a military demonstration Red Imps: Misha, Duniasha and Tom Jackson bring a captured enemy, dangerous Makhno.

Mr. Jones, since his last escapade, had made strenuous efforts to amend the reputation he had gained in the eyes of the ladies of the Temperance League. But Oh! the ordeal, for such it was, was telling on him, and his pent-up spirits were threatening ebullition, when at last the chance comes. The league arranges to attend a three-days' convention out of town, and when Mrs. Jones departs, Jones sends a note to Smith, telling him to bring the gang, and they would have a "Prayer Meeting," enjoining him not to forget the "fixings." Well, the gang are not long in putting in an appearance, for they feel that every minute's delay is a chunk lost from a golden opportunity for fun.

In this partially lost silent film, a man working as a motion picture extra in Hollywood westerns impresses a visiting sheikh with his boxing skills and is engaged to go to Arabia, where he becomes involved in warring and falls in love with a beautiful princess.

In this Our Gang film, James Finlayson plays the gang's schoolteacher who takes the kids to Europe after winning a local contest. He takes them on a tour of Naples, Pompeii, Rome, the Vatican, Venice, London, and finally Paris, where problems arise on top of the Eiffel Tower.

Joe Cobb is a wealthy child who longs for a baby brother. His nursemaid takes him to the other side where he meets some kids his age (the rest of Our Gang) where Joe offers three dollars for a baby. Farina finds a fellow African-American neighbor woman who lets him mind her infant which he then paints white and sells to Joe. The rest of the gang has set an assembly-line system that washes, dries, rocks, and feeds male and female babies.

It's the Fourth of July and the mother of Our Gang member Joe Cobb is doing a brisk business at her fireworks stand. Briefly left in charge of the stand, Joe does his best not to blow up himself or his friends, but a poorly-aimed skyrocket owned by Allen "Farina" Hoskins triggers a somewhat premature but undeniably spectacular display of pyrotechnics.