The Sap Takes a Wrap

In the second collection of Columbia Pictures shorts starring Charley Chase, I was very surprised at the quality of the shorts--at least initially. Most were pretty good...until I got to the last half dozen or so on the disc. They were pretty terrible and it looks as if whoever compiled them did in order of quality and laughs. Sap takes a wrap is awfully unfunny and ends much like a Three Stooges film--with a giant mêlée.

Charley is an attorney dating some society lady. However, a pesky reporter prints outright lies about Charley--making him seem like a Cassanova. He denies this strongly to his girlfriend and she generally believes him. But, when he talks to a group of larcenous girls who come to him about a fur coat, she assumes he's two-timing her. To try to get out of it, he gives the girls' coat to his girlfriend. Through the rest of the film, this group of girls who own and share the coat keep trying to get it back from him. Wow...when I explain the plot, it really DOES sound unfunny!

Unusually, Charley Chase gets on-screen screenplay credit for this entry in the series of shorts that he made for Columbia Pictures after his longtime home, Hal Roach Studios, stopped producing two-reel comedies. I don't know whether that means he actually contributed more than his usual rather large amount to the writing of this particular film, or if Columbia simply decided to credit his work this time, but either way he has nothing to be ashamed of -- "The Sap Takes a Wrap" is very funny and certainly bears his hallmarks.

The idea, in short, is that Charley is a lawyer whose friend has playfully written in the gossip column that he's been cheating on his fiancée, and all sorts of awkward coincidences keep happening to make this appear to be the truth -- mainly coming to revolve around a suspicious-looking fur coat that three music hall dancers have entrusted to his care for the time being. There are certain strains that are very strong in Chase's comedy, and this is a good example of his mining the laughs out of impossibly and increasingly awkward situations for Charley, and of his taking a solid but unremarkable gag (ie it looks like Charley is cheating) and taking it to such an unlikely extreme that it becomes brilliant.

There's also an excellent running gag that pays off at the end revolving around a fellow called Maloney. Charley has the benefit of experienced comedy director Del Lord, and he's a good collaborator with his style. The timing is good all through and until the big fight scene near the end, which is fine, it doesn't descend into pure "Columbia style" physical slapstick. The singers are played by "the Astor Trio" in their only film appearance. Presumably it's an attempt to launch them and there is every indication that a musical number is forthcoming, but there never is one. It's a little disappointing, as the songs in Chase's shorts are always a lot of fun. Perhaps there was a last-minute decision to cut their act for some reason.

In his dozen years at Roach, Charley Chase structured his comedies as quick farces, built on characters who were a bit ditzy but believable, thrust into situations in which the gags could be inserted: appropriate, understandable, and very funny. When Roach closed down the short department and Charley moved to Columbia, he struggled with the house style, which was generally better suited to low comedy. However, gradually he worked out a style of short pitched midway between the two and created some great comedies. This is one of them.

Charley is a theatrical agent whose high-class girl friend, Gloria Blondell, believes the newspaper stories that he is a wolf. So, when some clients leave a fur coat with him so the sheriff won't take it for non-payment, Charley is cornered into giving her the coat.... and taking her and her parents to the night club where his clients are working.

It's all believable, if barely, and the gags arise from that. If the jokes are pitched towards the Columbia large and loud style, Charley knew how to deal with that. There's even a nice running gag in which old-timer George Cleveland gets a lot of laughs, with a lovely payoff.

Although Charley would do even better, this is a fine comedy and should please his fans.