The Poor Fish

Poor Fish, The (1924)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Jimmy Jump (Charley Chase) and his wife (Katherine Grant) get into a heated fight only to make up after they realize it's their jobs causing the stress. They then agree to switch places with her going out to work and Jimmy staying home to do housework. Of course he thinks staying at home is easier but soon the truth hits. This 10-minute Hal Roach short really isn't anything overly ground breaking but there are enough funny bits to make it worth viewing. Some of the highlights happen before the actual switch as the two actors have some nice chemistry together and their fighting is extremely funny and especially all the breaking of the dishes. When they finally do the switch all of the jokes are pretty routine but some of them manage to get laughs like the bathing of the canary. Another funny sequence happens when 'Tonnage' Martin Wolfkeil shows up as a salesman only to get a laugh out of seeing Jimmy dressed like a woman.

"The Poor Fish" is one of a series of one-reelers that Charley Chase made earlier in his career as "Jimmie Jump." Unlike some of the earlier entries in the series, Charley starts already married and dealing with a problem with his life, and he would go on to vacillate between being a bachelor and a henpecked husband throughout his long series of shorts.

He is working with very standard material here: Charley and his wife are fraught because of Charley's demanding job and her housework, so they decide to switch roles. Unsurprisingly, Charley is quite incompetent when it comes to cooking, cleaning and watching dishes, his wife comes home a wreck, and gender roles are reinforced.

It doesn't leave room for the kind of outrageous silliness or complex embarrassing situations that make many of Chase's other films so distinctive and brilliant, but there are a good number of laughs to be had from some very clever gags -- especially the sequence of gags at the end involving his disastrous attempts to wash a bird and what ends up happening instead. Of of the funnier gags is tied in which some tangible subtext -- politeness works on a traveling salesman because of Charley's fey little hat, emasculating him even more than the housework does.

Overall a funny little short but not among the entries in the series than take best advantage of Charley Chase's many talents.

bad musical accompaniment.

In this early Jimmy Jump comedy starring Charley Chase, Charley is an unhappily married man. He and his wife argue incessantly and the mother-in-law has moved in with them. They both realize that they are taking out their anger on each other and come up with the notion to change jobs with each other for a week to give them insight into how tough their partner's life is.

As for Charley, it's not surprising that he's pretty inept as a homemaker. It doesn't help any that Mother just sits around and does nothing to help. So, as one disaster after another occurs, she just sits there knitting. But, when the wife arrives home, her day was no better. And, surprisingly, Mother handles the situation--setting everything right.

All in all, not a super-funny short but it is enjoyable and light. Worth seeing but not one of the better Chase comedies.