Seven Years Bad Luck (1921)
Directed by Max Linder

Film Review

Buoyed up by the success of Le Petit café (1919), his first full-length film, Max Linder made a second attempt to conquer Hollywood with what is now considered one of his best films.  In 1916, Linder had tried to set up shop in America, working for the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, but none of the films he made for Essanay proved to be a success and he was soon on his way back to France.  With the French film industry in decline after WWI, Linder was tempted back to Hollywood and set up his own production company there, hoping to make a splash with his first American feature, Seven Years Bad Luck.  Again, luck was not on Linder's side and the film struggled to find an audience in the United States, although it was very well-received elsewhere.  Linder must have felt he was pursuing a dream that was never to be.

Today, no one disputes that Seven Years Bad Luck is one of Max Linder's finest achievements.  The famous mirror gag which the Marx Brothers used in their 1933 film Duck Soup is delivered even more brilliantly by Linder in this film, along with countless other faultlessly rendered slapstick routines that never fail to get a laugh.  The sight of Max casually walking into a lion's cage and subjecting himself to the advances of a romantically inclined lioness is pure comedy genius and shows how far Linder was prepared to go to entertain his audience.  In another sequence, he nimbly climbs onto an elephant's back, and in another he is propelled down a busy highway attached to the front bumper of a car!  Linder is not only fearless, he is impeccable in his timing and moves with the grace of a world class ballet dancer - why he was ever eclipsed by Chaplin and Keaton is one of the great unsolved mysteries of cinema.  If Linder didn't make it in America with a gag-packed extravaganza like Seven Years Bad Luck, it was never going to happen.  Sadly, it didn't, and the greatest era of film comedy lost one of its biggest talents when Linder returned to France, a broken and disillusioned man.

Film Synopsis

With his wedding day just around the corner, Max is determined to make the most of his last few hours of bachelor freedom.  After a night of heavy drinking, he returns to his house much the worse for wear.  When he wakes up the next morning he is bleary eyed and confused, which is just as well for his servants, who have managed to break his full-length mirror.  Convinced that he has broken the mirror himself, Max expects he can now look forward to seven years of bad luck.  His fears are confirmed when his fiancée decides to break off their engagement - all he did was to stuff her precious pooch into a vase and frolic around with her servants a little.  Thinking that a change of scene may improve his fortunes, Max decides go on a train journey.  Unfortunately, on the way to the station he loses his wallet in a fracas with a pair of muggers.  Undeterred, he finds a way to get onto the train without a ticket, only to be pursued by a hoard of over-zealous railway staff.  Meanwhile, Max's fiancée is being courted by his mischievous rival...