User:PebblezF

A veteran vaudeville and minstrel show performer and a fine comic in his own right, African-American supporting actor Spencer Bell spent most of his screen career in the comedies of whey-faced Larry Semon. Semon apparently doted on Bell and it is a shame that the star comedian/producer often chose to bill him under the demeaning moniker G. Howe Black. Bell appeared thus billed in the bizarre Semon version of The Wizard of Oz (1925), in which he made a very strange Cowardly Lion, and in The Perfect Clown (1925). He played a porter in the latter and fairly dominates the proceedings at one point. Bell all but retired after Semon's death in 1928.

by Hans J. Wollstein in AllMovie.com

Wizard of Oz was not popular with audiences and some critics disdained its "custard pie atmosphere," as Picture Play noted. The slapstick was overplayed and contemporary audiences will undoubtedly recoil at the film's crude racist caricatures.

African-American actor Bell, unfortunately, comes off the worst in Semon's hopelessly dated and often offensive comic vision. His character is introduced in a crude vignette, eating a watermelon. Semon's unpleasant characterization of Bell continues, missing few opportunities to propagate racist stereotype by billing the actor as "G. Howe Black."

by Felicia Feaster in TCM.com