The Cheese Special
1913 silent short film
The Cheese Special is a 1913 American silent short comedy film featuring Max Asher and marking the film debut of Louise Fazenda. The scenario was written by Allen Curtis, but the identity of the director is unknown. It was the first production released by the newly formed Joker productions, as part of the Universal Film Manufacturing Company. The film is presumed to be lost and there is no published synopsis of the film. Known production details state that it was shot on a beach resort and used a miniature train. The film had a wide release and was reviewed by The Moving Picture World as a low comedy suited for the burlesque theaters.
Plot
No known script or plot of the film has surfaced, but the highlight of the film was summarized in the Corsicana Daily Sun as "a roaring Joker comedy in which Dauntless Dan stops the train with one hand and rescues the heroine with the other while the villain hisses between his teeth."
Cast
Max Asher as The Rich Banker
Louise Fazenda as heroine/Schmaltz's daughter
Hank Mann as Schmaltz(as A.Mann)
Lee Morris
Bobby Vernon as Sylvion De Jardins
Production
Few details are known about the production of the film, but it was shot on a beach resort and used a miniature train. Due to the lack of credits, both Louise Fazenda and Henry Mann's roles were provided by Photoplay, in response to an reader inquiry. The film was the first release by the new Joker productions, which was dedicated to producing only short comedy films. Kalton C. Lahue and Samuel Gill credit this production as being Louise Fazenda's film debut.
The public source identifies “The Cheese Special” as 1913 silent short film. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cheese, Special and silent.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3986242. The first chronological checks are 1913.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Cheese Special” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.