Jean Durand

The only way Onésime could think of to get his inheritance quicker was to set the clocks forward. Surprise: the whole world starts speeding up wildly. (imdb)

When gold is discovered the first man there gets to stake his claim. Joe and another man race each other, which involves a thrilling episode on a train. (imdb)

A woman enters a room with a man. She creates a duplicate of him and changes his personality by throwing his clothes from one man to the next.

An Indian maiden wishes to marry her lover, but her father refuses because he does not have the requisite bride price. This is an Indian love story shot on location in the Camargues. (imdb)

In "Calino Wants to Be a Cowboy", Clément Mégé plays the boob, Calino. He wants to live the cowboy life and travels to America to see the West. There he meets some real cowboys who seem to think he's hilarious--as he's totally out of his element and a bit of an idiot as well.

While the film is about the baptism of a child, this isn't 100% apparent by the action. Out of the blue, midway through the film, the 'baby' walks off, steals a bicycle and goes on a made dash--followed by the members of the baptism party. (imdb)

Aka - The Way to Fake a Rembrandt. French comedy short.

Poor Eugénie! She's humpbacked and everyone wants to straighten her out, but when success finally comes, she's too tall not to cause disasters. To solve the problem, the help of a sword swallower is urgently needed. (imdb)

The film begins with the Count giving an actress a necklace. However, after her performance, the valuable necklace is missing and so the actress goes to hire some detectives to find it. I loved the strange detective agency in the film. The place had a sliding door, chains on the wall and detectives seem to magically appear out of the floor. It was very kooky but fun. (imdb)

A French comedy short with Zigoto.

One day, Calino has the bold and imprudent idea to follow a woman down the street. The woman leads him all the way to the traveling lion cage run by her husband. To avoid her husband's jealous anger, the woman introduces Calino as an apprentice lion tamer. Unassured, Calino has to enter the cage, but his fear is so intense that he forgets to shut the door behind him. (imdb)

Calino goes politely around to three or four people from the bourgeois class, trying to sell them a lightning rod: but due to a factory defect, the apparatus attracts lightning instead of driving it away. (imdb)

The short by Jean Durand begins with his frequent character, Zigoto (Lucien Bataille) reading a boring book. So, instead he goes on an outing in his new car with his friends. The captioning says it's a new '101 horsepower car'--this, during an age when the horsepower of cars actually was between 4-30 horsepower! So, in other words, it's supposed to be a super-fast car. (imdb)

Onésime is challenged to a pistol duel.

The hapless Onésime stumbles on a baby, and just can't seem to get rid of it, no matter how hard (and violently) he tries. (imdb)

Three friends on their way to deliver a payroll stop for a few drinks. Two of them decide to stay for a while, but the third sets out to deliver the payroll by himself. When he never shows up, one of the friends who stayed behind is arrested for his murder and sentenced to hang.

Calino decides to take a boarder. The gentleman turns out to be a huntsman. All goes well until pay day when the roomer refuses to get out of bed to pay his bill. He says that his pocketbook is in one of his trunks in the garret. Up goes the anxious Calino and his officious mother and sister only to find, upon ransacking each trunk, a furious African lion emerge.

She wants to go shopping alone and he doesn't want that to happen. So they fight.

Joe loses everything he owns in a game of dice. Becoming mad he causes a fight and becomes a hunted man by the owner of the ranch where he worked. Wanting revenge, Joe returns to the ranch and releases the cattle belonging to his former boss. Prosecuted for the offense, Joe kills several men and a reward of one hundred dollars is then offered to bring him back dead or alive.

Indians and cowboys clash in a burning war.

In the grip of passionate foreplay, Zigoto and his lover are oblivious to an escalating series of interruptions and catastrophes going on around them.

In his pursuit of a young female student, Onésime finds himself at a university hospital receiving the unwelcome attentions of overenthusiastic dentists and surgeons.

A cowboy needs to kidnap a priest to marry him and his lady.

Users of the postal service aren't very happy that Onésime spends his work time writing love letters to a lovely lady. Understandably, the woman's husband doesn't take it very well either. To escape his wrath, Onésime can think of nothing better than slipping into the mail duct. And it's pneumatic.

When Onésime gets declared dead by drowning, the supposed-widow consults a private detective specialized in missing persons.

Julius wants to marry Nelly, but her uncle forbids that. An attempt to court her failed, but the second attempt with the help of an aircraft might work.

Zigoto acrobatically drives a locomotive gone haywire, which runs through the city causing frenzied bedlam. One of Durand's burlesque masterpieces.

For some time now, Sosthène, clerk at the Grand Laundromat of Papillon-sous-Bois, has been in love with Alphonsine, the girl who brings the laundry. One evening, he decides to win the heart of his beloved, who until now has been cruel and deaf to his fiery declarations, and if necessary, he'll kidnap her.

Ernest Bourbon -- that's Onesime -- has decided to learn to box, for some reason, and also fight an American fighter who's touring France.

The film begins with our hero moving from the East Coast (USA) to the West. There he meets some cowboy types and he gets a job taking care of the burros. Soon, Onésime meets a lady and they hit it off--and a jealous cowboy will have none of it.

Looking after his aunt and uncle's house when they're away, animal lover Onésime turns it into a hospital for sick animals.

Difficulties ensue when Calino and Onésime get married on the same day, in the same registry office.

Calino's uncle leaves him an inheritance, but only if he can uncover it hidden in his uncle's house. Detective Onésime is called in to help, and is soon tangling with some criminals after the treasure too.

There is one joke in this slapstick from Jean Durand's comedy unit at Gaumont: Calino wants to win a boxing match, and decides that he needs to toughen up one part of his body: no glass jaw for him! So he subjects his chin to various punishment, all of which he endures with no sign of discomfort.

Ernest Bourbon is introduced to a young lady, object matrimony. Unfortunately for him, he slips the ring on the other girl. (imdb)

A device using radio waves can make machines and people move from a distance.

Against a painted backdrop of palm trees, Clément Mégé accepts an Arab's offer of three Black wives out of a tent. He takes them back to Paris, where they wreak havoc not only on his apartment, but his favorite bistro.

Just as the streets to hell, to hear it from the travelers, are paved with good intentions, the illustrious police officer Zigoto's brain is full of the most commendable initiatives. While passing before a door, he sees a piece of rope underneath and thinks it his duty to bend down and pick it up. But he's amazed to see that the more he pulls, the longer the cord becomes: "For a thousand prefects - that was his favorite exclamation - do they take me for a pulley?"

Ernest Bourbon, with his idiotic smile perpetually plastered on his face, invites the miners into his apartment, which they accidentally destroy. Miners, as we know, always carry their shovels and pickaxes with them, and never wash.

After Ernest Bourbon attends a stage magician's act, his possessions suddenly have magical powers: confetti emerges in abundance for his hat, ladies disappear underneath his umbrella, and so forth. (imdb)

While the costume maker Onésime is absent, his mannequins begin to play…

Early Calino short.

Much to his annoyance, Onésime’s relatives arrive to stay with him, and the family resemblance is striking.

Calino is left in charge of a railway station, with predictably disastrous consequences.

Dissolute drinker Onésime signs a deal with the Devil to pay his bar tab, and finds himself in a rather peculiar version of Hell.

His double behaves very badly (he pinches the maid's behind), while the real Onésime suffers the consequences.

In pursuit of the conventional chase theme, Durand always tries to renew his methods. He never settles for showing a clumsy guy being chased by his victims. The rugby players from 'Le Match Oxford contre Martigues' continue playing the game throughout the city streets.

Lucien Bataille finds himself hired as a secretary to an elderly man. His principal duty is to make sure that the man's niece, Berthe Dagmar, doesn't see the young man she's interested in. No problem! Bataille finds himself assigned a spirited horse when called on to accompany the young lady in her equestrian exercises.

Lucien Bataille is hired as security for the department store, and proceeds to wreck much of it to keep anyone from from stealing anything.

Berthe Dagmar is kidnapped and Lucien Bataille is almost immediately on the case: examining the road with a magnifying glass, putting a straw hat on a horse, climbing a high gate, and duckwalking across a parapet. Nothing will stop him in his quest to.... well, whatever it is he's doing.

Ernest Bourbon discovers that a shower of gold coins fall from his donkey's hindquarters -- I've phrased that as politely as I can. Now rich, he moves to the city, dresses well and hires servants. Unlike the one about the goose that lays the golden eggs, he treats his benefactor well, even though the donkey doesn't seem to enjoy the process.

A husband steps out at night, and the wife decides to leave him.

An eccentric actor is in a peck of trouble over a girl. Falling furniture and a final resting place in the dump heap are features of this, which brings considerable laughter.

Ernest Bourbon gets a bust delivered. Eduoard Grissolet visits him and rhapsodizes over it. Then Bourbon is taken to the loony bin, where they perform some extreme slapstick on him. He escapes, heads home, crawls into bed. The police break in. They take him to an interrogation room and push him out a window.

Seated comfortably in the green pastures near his home, Batty Bill is suddenly presented with a baby, but with his usual dull wits he is slow to realize the catastrophe that has befallen him. When he does so, the giver of this great gift has disappeared. Poor Batty Bill endeavors to leave the baby everywhere, but without success. Ultimately he is, as he thinks, more successful, and is able to give the baby over to the police.

The fact that the Four Arts Club were organizing an international competition of modern dances was welcome news to Simple Simon. When he ascertained that the dances would include the Cake Walk, Serpentine Crawl. Piccadilly Flop, Tango, the Wriggly Wriggle, and the Bear Dance, he selected the latter. Simon resolved to seek a teacher in its native haunts. He wandered up the mountainside and chanced upon a strolling Bruin, which he decided to capture.

Batty Bill has some bachelor apartments. He also has a friend, who has fallen in love. These lovers adjourn to Batty Bill's apartments, where unfortunately for Batty Bill, they are traced by the wrathful father, who spites his wrath on the furniture and contents. While doing this, he is discovered by Batty Bill, who, in his humble endeavors to stop the damage, becomes himself the object of the father's fury and is chased through all sorts of ridiculous mix-ups, from roof to roof.

French parody western.

In Seville, Angel Call, a Parisian businessman, escapes blindness after a car accident, thanks to the dedicated care of Mercédès, intended for the convent. They fall in love and Mercedes soon discovers the temptations of Paris.