Postby Gary Johnson » Thu Oct 29, 2009 2:55 pm
I hope this isn't too long winded but I've been mulling over the shorts on this disc for some time.
Disc 2
Roach needed a new series and Chase was ready to return in front of the camera. The Jimmy Jump series proves how ready he was. Chase is off and running with his character of a middle class suburbanite dealing with life and its many complexities and.....in Charley’s case....embarrassments. Some of these early shorts veer into Harold Lloyd territory, such as his playing a mama’s boy in “Fraidy Cat” (24) and “Young Oldfield” (24), but many are blueprints for his classic 2 reel shorts to come. The 1 reel format is such an odd duck – not long enough for dense storylines or multiple gag sequences but also too short to run out for popcorn and a beer. Snub Pollard made some of the funniest one-reelers I‘ve ever watched. His films are crammed with silly, cartoonish gags whose runtime ends just perfectly before things get too serious on screen. Chase helped create many of those films so it is interesting to see him take a totally different track when he got his chance. His plots and gags are rooted in every day happenings and then slightly twisted in an absurdly comic slant.
The Jimmy Jumps are filled with comic conventions that Chase would return to continually and hone to perfection. “At First Sight” (24) travels into mistaken identity territory – which Chase would practically make a career out of. The difference here is that everything is quickly sorted out by fade without the escalating mayhem that his 2-reelers would pile on. “One of the Family” (24) is two movies in one. The first half involves marital misunderstandings while the second half delves into social conventions as the girl’s family of hicks thinks that Charley is a top-hatted swell and copies his every move while eating dinner. “Hard Knocks” (24) has Charley trying to impress his girl at her high society party, which would happen frequently in his career, as in “One-Mama Man” (27). Charley’s brother, James Parrott, came on board early in the series to help direct these shorts but it seems clear that Charley had the firm hand in the direction. There is a moment in “Powder and Smoke” (24) that contains a sly, subtle piece of direction that always makes me laugh. Set out West a new ranch owner is preparing to pay off the mortgage when bandits burst into the house with their guns drawn. Charley appears as a lightning rod salesman (don’t ask) and the girl slips him the money. The bandits give chase along with the ranchhands and the arrival of the posse, who scares off the bandits. Charley returns the money to the girl and goes on his way. The ranchers return to their spread relieved that the money is safe and as they enter inside they stop and the camera quickly pans to the right to reveal the bandits sitting on the desk with their guns drawn once again. We’ve gone full circle and haven’t gotten anywhere. It’s a funny shot and it doesn’t even involve our hero.
The series really begins to pick up with the arrival of Leo McCarey. Their first collaboration together, “Publicity Pays” (24), contains a funny hook that I don’t think most comedians would had arrived at. Charley and his wife are actors performing in a local amateur production when a talent scout is so taken with the wife’s abilities that he promises to make her a star. The next shot shows the Chases riding in a big limousine and wearing expensive clothes. If this was a Lloyd comedy Harold would had been indignant at being in his wife’s shadow and living off of her. Charley is more practical. He is happy for his wife’s success and enjoys living the good life. It’s a refreshing outlook. The only conflict in the marriage is that Charley is embarrassed by the constant crass publicity campaigns they have to endure. The latest caper is being seen with exotic animals – in this case a monkey. No reality star worth their salt didn’t own a monkey during the Roaring 20’s. In fact, the rest of the short abandons the plotline and instead concentrates on Charley’s attempts to sneak the monkey into Noah Young’s high class apartment complex. Charley spends a lot of time dashing in and out of strangers rooms and the farce element that Chase and McCarey would raise to high art is already apparent here.
The surviving footage from “Seeing Nellie Home” (24) is pure Keystone farce elevated by the newly emerging Roach style of sophisticated/slapstick comedy. “Outdoor Pajamas” (24) is a real gem as Charley finds himself caught out in public wearing just his p.j.’s. There is a marvellous tracking shot as Charley tries to nonchalantly walk the streets as a growing crowd gathers behind him to snicker and jeer. A series of sight gags ensue as Charley attempts to disguise the pajamas from a nosy cop (shades of “Liberty” (28)) and wraps the whole story up by re-introducing the wedding party that had opened the film. It was getting hard to believe that these densely plotted gag films were only 10 minutes in length. “Sittin’ Pretty” (24) flows beautifully from one incident to another. Charley starts the day driving over to see his girl and ends up disguised as a cop trying to capture an escaped lunatic – and yet it is all perfectly logical when it plays itself out. The highlight is the mirror sequence when Charley enacts a new disguise – that of the lunatic – in order to confuse and baffle the madman. That this scene is an exact blueprint for the Marx Bros. more famous version in McCarey’s “Duck Soup” (33) is an understatement. James Parrot, playing the maniac, gets the same exact close-ups as he tries to outsmart his mirror image (Charley) as Groucho gets 9 years later. But again it is the directorial touches that catch my eye. Charley pulls up to his girl’s house only to have his car hijacked by Leo Willis the moment he exits it. I mean the very, exact moment he steps away from it. It’s almost as if Leo were riding along on the running board waiting for his chance. It’s all very eccentric.
The disc finishes up with a bona fide farce classic, “Too Many Mamas” (24). Here we have Chase and McCarey clicking on all cylinders as Charley sets out to do his boss a good deed but suffers pain and indignities in their stead. The boss is stepping out on his wife and brings Charley along as the beard. No sooner does the trio arrive at the assignation, a noted dive of ill repute, when everyone’s significant others begin descending upon the joint in a cascading torrent of farce proportions. The gags all grow organically from the situation. Every comedian has mistaken a performance of the apache dance as a cruel assault upon a women and Charley is no different. After he quickly knocks out the offending male we wait for the comeuppance, which is usually retaliation from the female. In this case Charley has upset the patrons for interrupting their entertainment and they ascend upon him in hordes and beat him to a bloody pulp. From there on the dancer (Martha Sleeper) is an intricate part of the plot as she keeps coming to his aid for being so gallant earlier. But like a never ending rubik’s cube each turn creates another calamity as various loves appear just as Charley is covering up one suspected tryst after another. This short can leave one breathless and once again it’s hard to believe it was all crammed into just 1 reel.
It’s interesting to compare this short with its bookend companion that opens this disc, “At First Sight” (24), to see just how far Charley Chase has come in less than a year. In both shorts he is involved with his boss and their various loves and both have farce elements and amusing set pieces but the first short is rather subdued and genteel compared to the raucous, scintillating, intricately layered comedy that is “Too Many Mamas” (24).
Gary J.