Diving Lucy
About Diving Lucy
At the edge of a pond, two laborers see a woman's legs sticking out of the water. They fetch a bench and a long plank. A policeman pushes them aside and goes out on the plank himself. The legs are a dummy. A sign on them reads "RATS." He falls in.
More about Diving Lucy
Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon produced the comedy in 1903 and filmed it at the boating lake in Queen's Park, Blackburn. Wikidata times it at 2 minutes. The American Biograph Company advertised it in February 1904 as "the biggest English comedy hit of the year." Edison also handled an American release.
Themes
Making
The whole joke is staged on the Blackburn lake: the plank, the dummy legs, and the policeman's fall. There is no studio cutaway.
Reviews
The Talking Machine News called Diving Lucy a decided novelty. Biograph's 1904 American ad called it the biggest English comedy hit of the year.
Preservation
A copy is at the Cinema Museum, London. Milestone included it on the 2006 American DVD of Electric Edwardians.
Notes
- The Talking Machine News called it a "decided novelty" and said the writer did not remember anything similar.
- Wikipedia calls it the most successful Mitchell and Kenyon film.
- Frank Mottershaw reused the dummy-legs joke in Sold Again (1907). In that version the policeman is hit with snowballs instead of falling in.
- The Cinema Museum in London holds a copy, with 64 other Mitchell and Kenyon fiction films.
- The American edition of the Milestone DVD Electric Edwardians: The Lost Films of Mitchell & Kenyon (2006) includes it as a bonus.
Scenes
- Laborers run a bench and a plank out over the pond toward the legs.
- The policeman finds the sign reading RATS and falls off the plank.
Influenced
- Sold Again (1907)
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-diving-lucy)
- Milestone Films DVD, Electric Edwardians: The Lost Films of Mitchell & Kenyon (2006, American edition, bonus)