The Cheekiest Man on Earth

One man's rudeness finally catches up with him in this chase film directed by J.B. McDowell.

A man's repeated acts of rudeness see him pursued through the streets by a growing mob of disgruntled people. After attempting to cut in on a couple taking a leisurely stroll, he steals a woman's sweets, poaches a man's cigar, guzzles the drinks of two other men, snatches a gentleman's pocket watch, wipes his nose on one man's handkerchief and pilfers another's newspaper. His attempt to knock the hat off a uniformed man proves to be the last straw however, as the pursuing crowd arrives just in time to see the cheeky chap thrown off a bridge and into the river.

Keywords

Chase film

Background Information

The director of 'The Cheekiest Man Alive' was born Benjamin John McDowell, but is often credited as either 'B. J.' or 'J. B.'. He started his career in motion pictures at the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company, which he joined in 1898. He worked as a projectionist under William Jeapes at the Empire, and was later chief cameraman at Walturdaw, before joining Warwick Trading Company. In 1909 McDowell founded the British and Colonial Kinematograph Company with Albert Bloomfield, producing fiction and non-fiction films, including this title. British & Colonial were one of the companies that formed the British Topical Committee for War Films, and after Teddy Tong fell ill, McDowell was sent as a replacement cameraman to the Western Front in June 1916. Together, he and Geoffrey Malins filmed the material that subsequently became 'The Battle of the Somme' (1916), the most celebrated film of the World War I, and with their subsequent films 'The Battle of the Ancre and the Advance of the Tanks' (1917) and 'The German Retreat and the Battle of Arras' (1917) they became the most famous cameramen figures of the war. McDowell was subsequently awarded the O.B.E. and Military Cross for his work. [Source: BFI Film & Television Database]