The Man Who Never Made Good (1914) | BFI National Archive

A bungling bumpkin tries his hand at a series of jobs in this slapstick silent comedy - only to prove how useless he is at all of them. After being unceremoniously ejected from a bus (reason unknown; the beginning of the film is missing), our hapless hero becomes (among other things) a waiter, a soldier and a sandwich-board man. His true calling, as it turns out, is altogether less dignified... This film may actually be a 1914 reissue of a 1908 film originally titled 'No Good for Anything', which was made by the Rosie Film Company. The opening scene with the bus appears, from the visible signage, to have been filmed on Croydon High Street (the Rosie Film Company was also based on the same street, in Wrencote House), while the scene with the lead character as a sandwich board man was filmed to the north west of Croydon at Wandle Bank in Collier's Wood (a street sign is visible in the background). One of the film's pleasures is seeing local residents standing in the background and watching the filming take place. Some local boys take a more active role, having been co-opted into attacking - with obvious relish - the sandwich board man as he fords a stretch of water on the edge of Wandle Park. This video is part of the Orphan Works collection. When the rights-holder for a film cannot be found, that film is classified as an Orphan Work. Find out more about Orphan Works: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/c.... This is in line with the EU Orphan Works Directive of 2012. The results of our search for the rights holder of this film can be found in the EU Orphan Works Database: https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en... Subscribe: http://bit.ly/subscribetotheBFI. Watch more on the BFI Player: http://player.bfi.org.uk/ Follow us on Twitter:   / bfi   Like us on Facebook:   / britishfilminstitute   Follow us on Google+: https://plus.google.com/+britishfilmi...