Most people familiar with silent comedy are not familiar with Charley Chase. They recognize the face but not the name. Chase is probably best known as the obnoxious conventioneer in Laurel & Hardy’s SONS OF THE DESERT. He was a hard working, driven individual who died in 1940 at the age of 46. His real name was Charles Parrott and in addition to being a performer he was also a gag writer, a producer as well as a director of his and other people’s shorts. During the 1920’s he was the most popular performer in comedy shorts until the advent of Laurel & Hardy. This new collection from Kino International and Lobster Films allows us to see Chase in his prime. What we see in these shorts is a man who while not a topflight comedian like Chaplin, Keaton or Lloyd, could be uproariously funny at times depending on his material.
The director on most of the shorts in this collection was Leo McCarey who would go on to become one of Hollywood’s major directors with features like DUCK SOUP and GOING MY WAY. Start off your viewing with MIGHTY LIKE A MOOSE which is undoubteedly the best short in this collection. The plot of an ugly married couple who undergo plastic surgery unbeknownst to each other and then proceed to fall in love with their new selves is a true classic which has appeared elsewhere. Follow that up with CRAZY LIKE A FOX which shows the full range of his inventiveness as Charley pretends to be crazy to get out of an arranged marriage. The one reel ALL WET contains one of the more imaginative sequences in all of silent comedy as Chase repairs a car while underwater.
The remaining titles all have something to recommend them so hats off to Lobster Films for allowing us the opportunity of seeing an undeservedly forgotten comedian as well as giving us shorts by Harold Lloyd and Stan Laurel (before Hardy). These three sets are part of a new series called SLAPSTICK SYMPOSIUM from Kino International who continue to provide us with quality silent film releases.15 people found this helpful.
The Capsule Critic 