YMMV / Barney Oldfield's Race For A Life

• Hype Backlash: The film has gotten some flack from some silent movie aficionados, who consider it to be So Okay, It's Average and dislike how it perpetuates stereotypes people have of the medium. Even back then, there did exist more complex and interesting stories, and women were given roles which had more to them than simply being a Damsel in Distress.
• Love to Hate: The Villainous Rival, which Ford Sterling makes hammy enough to be entertaining, but still enough of a bastard to make you not feel that bad about his death.
• Narm Charm: Between the deliberately hammy acting and cliché plot, the No Fourth Wall, the quite good production values and cinematography, and the notion of featuring the then-fastest race car driver in the world playing himself as a hero outracing a train, this is practically an Invoked Trope.
• Parody Displacement: The film was made as an Affectionate Parody of stage melodramas, using tropes they had utilised for half a century. (In fact, a 1919 issue of The Photo-Play Journal —covering the equally comedic East Lynne with Variations —described the railroad rescue as "one of the most sacred traditions of melodrama," in an article adressing the "old-timers" among the readers.)
• Redundant Parody: A Meta example. Ford Sterling personifies the mustache-twirling Dastardly Whiplash archetype which is often parodied today, but this character type wasn't taken entirely seriously back in the silent era either, being generally Played for Laughs, (as it is here.) This has the effect of making many later parodies unintentional, straightforward Genre Throwbacks instead.
• Signature Scene: Mabel being Chained to a Railway. In particular, people tend to remember this publicity image,◊ taken from an angle which is never shown in the actual film.
• Spiritual Sequel: Teddy at the Throttle, a 1917 Mack Sennet film which also has a Woman being Chained to a Railway by a Dastardly Whiplash type in the climax.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The rescue scene — where the protagonists barely avoid being run over by the engine — which was achieved with a double-exposure. For a 1913 effect, it was frighteningly realistic, and it still looks quite good today, (even if the characters get a bit transparent towards the end.)