Series: Snub Pollard Director: Charles Parrott Producer: Hal Roach Titles: Photography: Editor: Stars: Snub Pollard, Marie Mosquini, Ernest Morrison Company: Pathé Exchange Released: 09 May 1920 Length: 1 reel Production No.: H-30 Filming dates: March 25-28, 1920 Rating: 1/10

Trotting Through Turkey

We begin with some giant wrestler throwing his opponent around and destroying him and earning the respect of a sultan who then offers up his daughter to him as a prize, but she clearly isn't enthusiastic. Enter the dandy, a photographer (Snub Pollard) who is walking through the hot desert with his kid assistant (Ernest Morrison) when he finds a bottle of whiskey. He sets up his camera and tripod and gets some shots of the kid holding it. They take a brief rest in the sand before a very unconvincing snake quickly makes them change their minds. They run to the local town and find a harem of dancing girls which Snub attempts to photograph. He introduces himself as 'Jim Dandy' and the girls ask him to teach them a dance. Snub grabs one of the girls (Marie Mosquini) and starts to dance with her but this draws laughter from the kid whom Snub then throws a cushion at. The boy starts playing a flute as Snub teaches the six girls some dance steps. Before long the small group suddenly becomes a large group with several others joining in with the fun. That is, until the sultan sees it all and breaks it all up. He then summons his guards to shoot Snub until he begs for their pardon. But instead Snub's fate is handed to the wrestler whom we saw earlier taking care of business. The wrestler and Snub square up and Snub takes a pounding. Almost defeated, Snub drinks from a flask containing a tonic which gives him a sudden burst of energy and strength which he uses to defeat his much larger opponent. The sultan rewards Snub with a girl, but he chooses Marie instead.

Favourite bit Snub's reaction after drinking the tonic is so over the top and animated but I really couldn't think of another moment which was worthy of remembering!

Trivia • Copyrighted June 15, 1920. • This was the second (and last) time the country of 'Turkey' appeared in the title of a Hal Roach film. The first was "Somewhere In Turkey" (Harold Lloyd, 1918). • The wrestler's name is Abdo Hootch, according to an intertitle card. My opinion • It's your typical bog standard Snub Pollard film, using the same tired cast, same old gags, nothing interesting and utterly boring to sit through. There is just no structure to the film and quite frankly it's embarrassing to watch. The only thing that made me laugh here was the thought of people having paid to watch this when it came out in theatres all those years ago!

	Snub Pollard Jim Dandy
	Marie Mosquini Harem girl
	Ernest Morrison The dandy's assistant
	Eddie Boland Sultan
	Bob O'Conor Sultan's right-hand man
	Frederick Peters Abdo Hootch, wrestler

UNIDENTIFIED CAST

INTERTITLES (click image to enlarge)

SHOT ON LOCATION (click any image to enlarge)

Acknowledgements: Dave Glass (film) Steve Massa (identification of Fred Peters) The ID of Bob O'Conor is my own educated guess This page was last updated on: 09 May 2020