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Answer:
His Busy Hour (1926) is a comedy about a young man who, having just been jilted, decides to do away with himself, and obtains a poisonous potion from a shaggy mountain hermit who warns him that takes its fatal effect one hour after being drunk. The unhappy young man drinks it and strolls off to the beach to die. Of course, he promptly meets a delightful young woman, and they strike up an acquaintance, which makes him reconsider the wisdom of his rash act of drinking the poison—but it’s too late now . . . or is it?
The film, produced by James Spearing, a former New York Times reviewer and Paramount scriptwriter with Hollywood experience, and Bertha Lincoln Heustis, author, is a fine example of the work of deaf performers in the era of silent movies, long before Deaf performers and ASL “went public.” Albert Ballin played the wise old hermit, and may possibly have directed. Since Spearing intended to distribute the film to mainstream audiences, no attempt was made to include sign language. Although, as John S. Schuchman points out in Hollywood Speaks, His Busy Hour was screened at Lexington School for the Deaf to raise funds for its national distribution and to create interest in forming a Deaf movie company. But there is no evidence that it was ever distributed. As for forming a Deaf movie company, sufficient community interest was lacking, and no such company was formed. Since the “silents” started becoming obsolete in 1929, an all-Deaf movie company would have benefited the community.
See Hollywood Speaks: Deafness and the Film Entertainment Industry (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), page 38, note 15. |
