Bad Boy

Bad Boy (1925)

*** (out of 4)

Another winning short from Charley Chase has him playing the son of a tough steel mill owner who makes him go to work starting at the bottom. The weak Chase gets picked on by the tough guys but he's forced to go into a tough bar to get his girlfriend out. It's a real shame that Chase seems to have been forgotten today because in a lot of ways his humor stands up a lot better today than many of the other artists out there in his same era. He's certainly not in the league of Chaplin or Keaton but then again, no one is. Chase does a great job here in the role of the weak guy who must eventually get tough even if just for a second. The best scene of the film has a large fight breaking out in the steel yard where Chase accidentally become involved. The editing of the short is also very good and brings in some great timing in order to carry out some of the laughs. The best example of this is when Chase's father tells him the work environment there is very friendly only to them cut to a large brawl. The second half of the film contains just as many laughs as Chase ends up having to deal with all sorts of tough guys. Those not overly familiar with Chase could start here and see why his popularity continues to grow.

This is one of several Chase shorts directed by Leo McCarey. Chase as Jimmie is the son of a wealthy industrialist and a bit of a weakling. His father tells Jimmie that he must work his way up in the business starting at the bottom. As an inter title card explains "Jimmie went to work in the great iron foundry where men were men and nothing could be done about it." Jimmie just doesn't fit in. To make matters worse, his mother has him participate in a garden dance of the sort popular then and he prances around playing a Pan like character. Observing this, both Jimmie's father and girlfriend are disgusted. So Jimmie decides to toughen up and meet his girlfriend at a working class dance hall pretending to be Bad Boy Brodie, a notorious thug. His ruse is discovered and a brawl ensues. His parents arrive and even they get into the act. It's all great fun highlighted by the cute meet between Jimmie and his girlfriend, Jimmie's lunch with a fellow workman at the foundry and the dance hall scenes. A clever and entertaining short. A plus is seeing Martha Sleeper as Jimmie's girlfriend. She had a memorable role in the great Max Davidson short "Pass the Gravy."

"Bad Boy" was only Charley Chase's second regular two-reeler after he had come off starring in a successful. innovative, and hilarious series of one-reel comedies. This early in his two-reel comedies the theme is one that had been a staple of Chase's one-reelers: he's a wimpy rich man who must toughen up. Immediately it's clear that Chase has literally 100% space to work with, as his character goes to work in steel yard and there is plenty of time for clever and slightly isolated gags around the theme of Charley's aristocratic character in this setting, bringing a fancy car, using contrivances to do his work for him, and setting elaborate place settings for his lunch, and all the while trying to fit in. This makes it a perceptive and interesting class comedy too.

This early he also demonstrates a rare sense for the two-reel medium. The threads of his rich background and girlfriend along with the fey dance his mother convinces him to do (admittedly rather randomly) dovetailing nicely into a great payoff with Charley discovered as not the "Bad Boy" gangster he claims to be in the dance club. While he brings the elements all in together, they do leave an impression of having been disparate beforehand -- kind of a smörgåsbord of Chase elements, with absurd comedy of humiliation when Charley must dress in drag moving right into the danger and social confusion in the club.

The incredibly cute Martha Sleeper is Charley's leading lady here, and I love her in these films. She doesn't just look pretty (although she manages that quite well) but contributes on her own with lots of funny charming pixie-like gestures. She and Charley do a skilled and entertaining dance routine that seems to me like the best silent equivalent of the songs that Chase would pleasingly insert into many of his later sound shorts.

A very funny short, as well as a glimpse at the ambition that Charley Chase had starting his own series of two-reel comedies and doing so with a plot as difficult to unite at the end as he can.

Charley Chase was the most popular comedian for Hal Roach during the release of "Bad Boy." The above short was released in 1925, is 18 minutes long and contains some quite funny comic situations. Chase is someone who needs to prove to his father that he can be just as much of a man as the factory workers who are employed by his father. Charley's efforts to assert his masculinity don't exactly go according to plan! Noah Yong (who supported Laurel and Hardy and Harold Lloyd) makes a welcome appearance as the comic heavy who has a showdown with our Charley.

This is the only Charlie Chase short I've seen so far, so I can't compare it to any others. It's an 18 minute flick that has a little of everything. It's full of comedy, romance, adventure, action, drama, and a happy ending.

Jimmy is the son of wealthy parents, and he gets caught up in trying to please them. More importantly, he wants to marry his girlfriend. Martha Sleeper plays the girlfriend and she steals the show in this two-reel short. She is funny and cute. The dance routine with Sleeper and Chase is hilarious. The lunch scene at the iron mill is funny too. There's a lot of goofy slapstick fighting too.