Crazy Like a Fox

Charley Chase's films were highly variable. I'm always willing to watch a Chase movie I haven't seen before -- hoping it's one of his better ones -- but I'm not enough of a Chase fan to seek out his work. Usually, Chase tends to impress me intellectually with his professionalism rather than provoking me to laughter. However, 'Crazy Like a Fox' had me laughing several times. It's not as funny as Chase's classic 'Mighty Like a Moose', but it's definitely well above Chase's average.

Charley's character here is not named, although his unseen father is named John J Wilson. Charley and Martha Sleeper have never met, but their respective fathers have betrothed them in an arranged marriage. (Does such a thing happen among native-born Americans?) By coincidence, Charley and Martha meet without either knowing whom the other is; they fall in love, and Charley tries to get out of his engagement to his unseen fiancée so that he can marry Martha ... all unaware that they're the same woman.

Now, here's where it gets so contrived that it's not very funny: Charley tries to break his engagement by feigning insanity. That's unlikely enough, but it becomes even unlikelier when he establishes that he can be temporarily restored to sanity whenever someone blows a whistle. It's hard enough to believe that anyone would create such a ruse in the first place; why would he compromise his own ruse by allowing other people to control it? Every time Charley starts his loony routine, he has to stop it when someone blows a whistle.

Oliver Hardy (pre-Stan Laurel) shows up briefly in what would later be his "Ollie" bowler, but without his moustache. The family's black butler is played by white actor Max Asher in highly unconvincing blackface make-up. Since Asher was often typecast in Jewish or "Dutch" (German) roles, it's intriguing to see him here impersonating a black man ... intriguing, but not funny.

I laughed during a routine in which Charley shams insanity while he sports a wiggling cockade on top of his head. The cockade's movements complement his facial pantomime as Charley registers several different emotions in a single shot. Hilarious! Unfortunately, there's far too little of this sort of thing in 'Crazy Like a Fox'. I'll rate this 7 out of 10, which is higher than I'd rate most of Chase's output.

This hilarious Charley Chase two-reeler is probably, alongside Safety Last, or The General, among the best of American silent comedies; forget the fact that it's only 25 minutes long, it is constantly brilliant, from the sheer simplicity of the construction(Charley decides to pass as an extreme mental patient to escape a marriage arrangement until he realizes the bride is the woman of his dreams)to the clarity of the gags involved, notwithstanding the contribution of Chase as an actor, who is of course so dignified, so dapper at the beginning that he falls deep into his pretense of madness, and seems to really enjoy the trip all along. Add to this the wonderful, brilliant and lovely Martha Sleeper, who was always Chase's equal in the films they made together, the presence of Oliver Hardy in an interesting departure from his usually 'heavy' roles, the impeccable direction by Leo McCarey, and you have a little masterpiece of invention that stands repeated viewings, like most of, say, Laurel and Hardy's masterpieces of the late twenties.

The rich father of Martha wants his daughter marry the young son of his rich friend; that is to say, a marriage of convenience, an ordinary practice among the aristocracy for centuries. However, Martha, who has never met her intended bridegroom, rebels against her father and runs away. At the train station, she meets a young man and the two fall in love instantly. The young man of course is the boy her father has chosen for her but he doesn't know who she is either. Naturally, they have to deal with some misunderstandings and problems before love finally triumphs.

"Crazy Like A Fox" was one of the numerous short comedies starring Herr Charley Chase and directed by Herr Leo McCarey, a gag writer and film director of those comedy shorts who joined the Hal Roach studio in 1923. Herr Chase had signed with Roach two years before as an actor/director and won popularity and success with many comedies. Chase and McCarthy both worked with with the most important comedians of the silent era, people like Roscoe Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy .

The importance of Herr McCarey in relation to silent comedies is notorious, thanks to his abilities to develop funny situations out of some weak material. in many of his oeuvres, that's will be not a problem if the comedian is a resolute, inventive and imaginative one, characteristics that can't be found in this two-reel comedy. For this Teutonic Count ( note that the German aristocracy have a delicate and fragile sense of humour ) the Charlie Chase humour displayed in this film is too simplistic and is childish in the worst sense of this word. No doubt these simple antics are funny for longhaired youngsters but to this German Count those silly gestures only emphasize, even more… his hieratic attitude.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must continue to be expressionless.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/

I saw this short last night at the Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles. They screened five shorts made by Charley Chase, and this was one of the best, (also great was "Mighty Like a Moose.")

The scenes of Charley acting insane are fantastic. Words don't do justice to the memorable physical comedy in this film. Oliver Hardy has a small, but significant, role. Definitely worth seeking out.

This two-reel comedy is worth seeing just for its centerpiece, which is Charley Chase's classic example of a character pretending to be crazy. There are some bland stretches, as well as some dated aspects that become rather distracting, and these keep the feature as a whole from being better. But there are also some hilarious moments that show Chase's style at its best.

The story has Chase and Martha Sleeper in a tangled romantic setting, which leads to Chase's character pretending to be insane, so that he can get out of an unwanted engagement. The script gets as much as you could ask out of the idea, and Chase is well-suited for this kind of premise. The main sequence also includes some creative comedy ideas, particularly the offbeat gag with the hat and the feather.

Oliver Hardy appears in the supporting cast, but only as a straight man, so he doesn't get to do much. The earlier sequences move rather slowly, but the concluding sequence works well enough. Overall, it's a solid if uneven comedy, with some highlights that make it well worth watching at least once.