Cohen Saves the Flag is a 1913

1913 in film

The year 1913 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* The Squaw Man, the first Hollywood feature film, is made.* December 29, Charlie Chaplin signs a contract with Mack Sennett to begin making films at Keystone Studios.* D. W...

 U.S. comedy film

Comedy film

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

 directed and produced by Mack Sennett

Mack Sennett

Mack Sennett was a Canadian-born American director and was known as the innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the "King of Comedy"...

, and starring Ford Sterling

Ford Sterling

Ford Sterling was an American comedian and actor best known for his work with Keystone Studios. One of the 'Big 4' he was the original chief of the Keystone Cops.-Biography:...

 and Mabel Normand

Mabel Normand

Mabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors...

.

Plot

Cohen (Ford Sterling) and his rival Goldberg (Henry Lehrman

Henry Lehrman

Henry Lehrman was an American actor, screenwriter and film director and producer.Born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, Lehrman emigrated to the United States at a young age and although he is best remembered as a film director, he began his career as an actor in a 1909 Biograph Studios production...

) enlist in the Union Army

Union Army

The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...

 during the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. Goldberg receives a lieutenant’s commission while Cohen becomes a sergeant. During the Battle of Gettysburg, Cohen inadvertently becomes a hero when he tosses back an enemy hand grenade and raises a fallen flag in the midst of the conflict. Goldberg conspires to have Cohen shot by a firing squad, but Cohen’s girlfriend Rebecca (Mabel Normand) rides to the rescue and details Cohen’s battlefield bravery. Cohen is hailed for his valor and later exacts revenge on Goldberg.

Production

Cohen Saves the Flag was a part of Mack Sennett’s "Cohen" series that used a burlesque of Jewish stereotypes for its humor. Typical of the film’s comedy is having Cohen chased into a pigsty, where he views the porcine residents with nervous apprehension – this is an obvious riff on the Jewish prohibition on eating pork.

Sennett set up his production company for Cohen Saves the Flag alongside Thomas H. Ince

Thomas H. Ince

Thomas Harper Ince was an American silent film actor, director, screenwriter and producer of more than 100 films and pioneering studio mogul. Known as the "Father of the Western", he invented many mechanisms of professional movie production, introducing early Hollywood to the "assembly line"...

’s epic The Battle of Gettysburg

The Battle of Gettysburg (1913 film)

The Battle of Gettysburg is a 1913 silent drama film directed by Charles Giblyn and Thomas H. Ince. The film is now considered to be lost, although some battlefield footage was used by Mack Sennett in his comedy Cohen Saves the Flag, which was shot on location alongside this production. However...

. Sennett staged his battlefield scenes on the edge of Ince’s production, capturing Ince’s grand wartime sequences for his film while keeping the Cohen Saves the Flag cast discreetly out of Ince’s camera range. Today, The Battle of Gettysburg is considered a lost film, and all that remains of that endeavor are the battlefield scenes appropriated by Sennett for his slapstick film.