Do Your Stuff

James Parrott complains that Chinatown has grown boring. The next thing you know, Jobyna Ralston has been kidnapped by a tong, and Paul must rescue her in this Roach short.

This one contains none of the character or plot development that Hal Roach's comedy shorts are best remembered for. It's all high speed gags and ethnic stereotypes, pretty much standard-looking slapstick from a lesser producer, but with a great ending.

Paul was the kid brother of Charley Chase, and Roach hoped he was getting a performer in Chase's style. The brothers fooled him. Charley switched back to performing and Paul went behind the camera, writing and directing. Some of Laurel & Hardy's best sound shorts had Paul wielding the megaphone.

Alas, like his brother, Paul had addiction problems. Charley's was booze. Paul's was hard drugs. By the middle of the 1930s, with Roach shutting down his shorts department, Paul was considered too unreliable, although he was still a great gag writer. He died near the end of that decade.