Something Simple

By 1934, the Hal Roach-Charley Chase shorts had become standardized. Chase took over the direction of the shorts and he usually had a co-director. In this case, the co-director is Walter Weems, a Sennett gag writer. Chase directed under his real name, Charles Parrott. There are no surprises in the film. It is a fast moving two reels of slapstick and nonsense dialog. Unlike many of the Chase shorts of this period, there really isn't much in the way of plot. A charming touch in most of these Roach shorts is the use of the actor's real names in the shorts. Charley Chase is almost always referred to as Charley Chase. Betty Mack's character is Betty, perennial drunk Arthur Housman is Mr. Houseman, and even Lew Kelly is referred to in a newspaper story as Lew Kelly. Only Del Henderson has a character name. The only thing missing in this short is the usual background music by Leroy Shield. It would have given this short a little more oomph.

I love old comedy shorts and have seen and reviewed several dozen Charley Chase films. However, I will be one of the first to admit that his films, particularly the sound ones, are very inconsistent. At times, the quality and writing of his films rivals that of his fellow studio workers Laurel and Hardy but at other times the films are an embarrassing mess. Generall, they are good--this one is one of the embarrassing messes!

So why is this such a bad film? Well, I don't completely blame Charley even though he both starred in and directed this stupid little film. That's because even with good acting, this film was doomed to fail because of shoddy production values and writing. The main plot idea is so contrived and ridiculous that it ruins the entire film. Supposedly a mentally ill man has escaped from the hospital and he runs around repeating nursery rhymes. When Chase and another man repeat nursery rhymes as well (for the dumbest and most contrived reasons), they are assumed to be the maniac. Pretty dumb, I know, but equally bad is the terrible rear-projection chase scene. It is among the shoddiest and most ridiculous even seen on film--even worse than the one from Laurel and Hardy's DANCING MASTERS!

Dumb, unfunny and a waste of time--see this one only if you want to see how bad Charley Chase could be at his worst!!