The love interest in this movie is played by Virginia Rappe, the woman whose death after a party thrown by Roscoe Arbuckle got him banned from the movies and reshaped Hollywood for decades. She doesn't have much to do except to look pretty, which she does very well. There are plenty of comics a few years before their prime under the direction of wunderkind Jack White, who would soon be producing their comedies.
As for what actually goes on in this movie, it's a mishmosh of various melodramatic plot tropes that alternate with fourth-wall breaking gags. It's very cartoony, and reminds me of those Bugs Bunny cartoons in which he would be trapped beneath a skeleton, thinking he was dead or dying, weeping madly, then stop, look at the audience and ask "Gruesome, isn't it?" then go back to crying.
As a whole it doesn't quite work, but I don't really care, because the gags are so good.
