Monty Banks Trailers
Days of Thrills and Laughter TrailerElstree Story TrailerThe Slappiest Days of Our Lives Trailer
Monty Banks was a short, stocky but somehow debonair Italian-born comic actor, later also writer and director. In the US from 1914, he first appeared on stage in musical comedy and cabaret. By 1917 he was working as a dancer in New York's Dominguez Cafe. After this he turned to films, acting and doing stunt work at Keystone, Universal and for Al Christie. Changing his name from Mario Bianchi to Monty Banks may have been prompted by Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle as a passing reference to his playing '"montebanks". By 1919 Banks had moved to Vitagraph to play a villain in The Grocery Clerk (1919), foil to star comic Larry Semon. Banks first came to the fore in his own right as star of the "Welcome Comedies" made by Warner Brothers. He spent the early 1920s at Fox and Grand Asher, graduating to writing and directing two-reel comedies with himself as the star. Most noteworthy entries in regard to inventive sight gags and Mack Sennett--style madcap plots are Pay or Move (1924) and The Golf Bug (1924). The success of this series prompted Banks to create an independent production company, the Monty Banks Pictures Corporation, in conjunction with writer/director Howard Estabrook. He made several feature-length films for Pathe, including Play Safe (1927)) (generally considered his best work), which featured a climactic runaway train sequence. This style of fast-action slapstick made it inevitable that Banks suffered more than his fair share of injuries, especially since he continued to do many of his own stunts. From the late 1920s Banks worked in England and made several appearances in sound films. However, his accent proved to be something of an obstacle. He therefore decided, after 1930, to concentrate on directing and producing. He helmed four features starring the popular entertainer Gracie Fields, who became his second wife in 1940. In 1935 he directed a well-received George Formby comedy, No Limit (1935), about the TT motorcycle races on the Isle of Man, which were shot on location there. With the outbreak of World War II Banks--being an Italian citizen--would have faced internment in England as an enemy alien. He therefore deemed it necessary to flee to Canada, and from there to the neutral United States. He eventually obtained American citizenship, for which he had applied years earlier, but had forgotten to submit the necessary paperwork. Back in Hollywood he ended up at 20th Century-Fox, directing Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in Great Guns (1941), arguably one of their lesser efforts. Banks died of a heart attack during a trip through Italy in January 1950, aged just 52. Sadly, the majority of his one- and two-reelers are now considered lost films. As a result, his status as a leading comic of the silent screen may have somewhat diminished--except, perhaps, in his home town of Cesena, where a foundation was established in his honor (the "Aula Didattica Monty Banks"), offering students "practical courses on experimental aspects of video production".
Most Popular Monty Banks Trailers
Total trailers found: 97
11 January 1920
Roscoe and Buster operate a combination garage and fire station. In the first half they destroy a car left for them to clean.
16 March 1924
Monty Banks plays a groom who is about to get married. In fact, he has the marriage license just about in hand.
28 July 1933
A model inherits a great deal of money and pretends to be a movie star.
30 May 1941
Bullfighter Juan Gallardo falls for socialite Dona Sol, turning from the faithful Carmen who nevertheless stands by her man as he continues to face real danger in the bullring.
01 January 1952
Starting in 1927 when the first film, The White Sheik, was made there, Elstree Story features excerpts from over forty productions – including Hitchcock’s Blackmail, the first feature-length British talkie ever shown – with early appearances by some of cinema’s greatest stars; it is a most memorable and evocative journey through the years.
26 December 1931
Slapstick comedy in which luckless slate club treasurer Bill Smithers is sent to prison for three years after being mistakenly accused of stealing funds.
23 May 1932
Calvin Jones is a cowboy who wants to invest in a Broadway play. Joe Lehman's secretary Ruth learns that her boss is attempting to swindle Jones and pulls a successful coup d'etat producing a play that she stars in.
10 October 1926
Monty Milde, would-be newspaper reporter, stumbles into a high-profile kidnapping mystery.
01 March 1935
The owner of a small Italian restaurant in central London is left a million pound inheritance, the only stipulation to the will being that he cannot speak or write anything for a period of one month.
08 July 1924
Golf with Monty Banks and pals.
14 May 1929
A lawyer spends the weekend with a married actress at the same hotel as his wife and her lover. This British silent film exists in an abridged 2-reel (32-min) format.
24 November 1918
Roscoe Arbuckle plays a Douglas Fairbanks fan who becomes a rotund version of his hero. As "The Sheriff", he must rescue abducted schoolteacher Betty Compson.
01 January 1923
After drinking all night, Monty and his friend try to get home, but it turns out to be not easy. The next day, Monty tries to win the heart of a theater actress.
01 May 1930
A musical comedy directed by Monty Banks. A cook recalls a night spent in a French estaminet in 1915.
17 March 1924
Monty is trying to collect rent from a couple of tough deadbeats who have made a sport of beating rent collectors.
04 December 1928
The guardian of an heiress tries to destroy the reputation of her lover by planting drugs on him.
01 October 1921
A hunting comedy full of cartoonish gags.
25 February 1931
A comedy film directed by Monty Banks.
06 September 1925
The Boy, involved in a maritime disaster as a child, suffers from hydrophobia. He invents a life preserver that automatically inflates when it hits the water, using it to save the life of Rose Ryan, the daughter of a steamship magnate.
05 January 1919
Camping Out is a 1919 American short comedy film directed by and starring Fatty Arbuckle. Fatty is the suffering spouse who comes home every night to an empty house and a neglectful wife.
26 July 1923
Monty appears as a chap whose prospective father-in-law, to find out the stuff of which he is made, sets him out to peddle an encyclopedia which no one else can sell.
13 February 1923
Set in the oil-soaked country of “Chilitina”—shot on location in San Diego’s Balboa Park—Oils Well! follows the travails of Monty, an everyman office clerk, who thinks only of his boss’s daughter.
29 September 1923
Monty Banks becomes a sailor in the hunt for his girl.
01 March 1919
"Fatty", a poor good hearted farm boy is deeply in love with Winifred, a farmer's daughter. A rich neighbor offers the farmer a large plot of land if Winifred marries his slow witted son Al.
02 January 1938
Entertainer quits a crooked London theater and sets up her troupe on her uncle's farm. A famous musician joins the group and helps them get a legitimate booking.
21 March 1961
An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.
31 December 1930
Wee Georgie Wood and his gang have their sights set on a notorious villain.
01 February 1930
A girl with amnesia believes she is a bachelor's wife.
13 October 1918
Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle confronts the Kaiser in his headquarters, and tells him that he will be be defeated by "scraps of paper," i.
01 December 1919
Augustus Billings has a domineering mother-in-law, and to get away from both her and his wife, he takes a trip, claiming that he is going off to check on Mexican oil investments.
21 June 1940
Comedy set in Switzerland. An estranged honeymooner, mistaken for an ice- hockey champion, helps England to win an international ice hockey match.
01 April 1933
The owner of a professional help agency poses as a poet at a wealthy patron's ball and prevents a necklace from being stolen by thieves.
01 September 1935
Love blossoms after a young man rescues a pretty girl who attempted to drown herself.
15 November 1929
English-language version. "Atlantic" is a drama film based on the sinking of the RMS "Titanic" and set aboard a fictional ship, called the "Atlantic".
28 October 1935
George Shuttleworth is convinced that he has the talent to win the Isle of Man TT races, despite what his neighbours back home in Wigan may think.
21 November 1922
Brilliantino the Bullfighter (originally titled Flood and Sand) is one of the first spoofs of Blood and Sand, Paramount’s smoldering matador melodrama that set box offices ablaze.
01 August 1936
Despite being on his uppers, George is still prepared to pawn his beloved banjo in order to help his girlfriend save her niece from the orphanage.
04 October 1936
A woman prevents a popular stage performer getting arrested for drunk driving, though has to pretend to be a rich benefactor when she next meets him.
13 November 1929
A recently engaged girl invites her parents to meet her fiance. They learn that he also loves another woman.
01 December 1932
A useless secretary and his private detective friend try to help an heiress from being swindled by her guardian.
05 April 1930
NEAT AND TIDY (1930) hilarious British Pathe comedy short with wonderful music hall comics. Newlyweds are old by the time their house is built.
10 December 1934
When a meek secretary goes to work for her new boss, she becomes a sophisticated lady.
13 March 1931
While staying at a reportedly haunted inn a traveller discovers that the 'ghost' is a thief.
16 July 1934
An American woman is fooled into thinking that she is the heiress to an estate in England.
10 March 1918
An industrious criminal plays his game so crookedly that he "double crosses" himself.
15 January 1928
Monty Banks gets involved in tracking down a stolen fortune, his adventures culminating in a whirlwind, gag-filled climax at sea.
02 June 1924
Monty chases a goose. Hilarity ensues. (This film is partially lost.)
04 December 1927
A naive young man joins the Army in order to become a pilot.
04 September 1934
British comedy. It was released in the United States the following year under the alternative title Trouble Ahead.
03 July 1938
A perpetual dreamer talks his wife into moving with him from their home in Australia to South Africa, where he hopes to discover gold and finally become wealthy.
29 February 1924
Monty Banks finds love and mischief at the amusement park, in this two-reel comedy
01 March 1930
A beauty salon owner puts on a cabaret.
01 August 1919
Misadventures of a traveling company of actors performing for one night in a small town. When the troupe's leading lady deserts the show for a better paying job as a waitress, a young woman from the town gets the role for one night.
03 June 1931
Farcical confusions ensue when newlywed bride Peggy Gay overhears her husband Jack discussing the purchase of a piano, and somehow interprets what he has said to mean he is the father of an illegitimate child.
20 March 1930
An agile waiter unmasks a cabaret conjurer as a thief.
23 June 1922
Very hungry Monty chases a garbage truck all around town to retrieve a box lunch thrown away by a picky young lady.
30 November 1923
A wild taxi driver can't get ahead with his fares but he is still willing to help his sweetheart at c
03 September 1928
An American on his honeymoon in Paris, organises the kidnapping of his interfering mother-in-law.
15 January 1921
A Monty Banks comedy short.
