ajabrams134

This is one of my favorite silent comedies and it's one of the Crown Jewels of Hal Roach Studio's silent output. The cast is wonderful, including Max Davidson, king of exasperation, Martha Sleeper and Gene Morgan supplying hysterical pantomime, and freckled-face Spec O'Donnell as Max's ne'er do well son. Direction by the underrated Fred Guiol is right on point. These days, Max Davidson has become kind of a "forgotten man" of screen comedy and he really shouldn't be. This short serves as a perfect introduction to his talent and you'll want to see more of his work after watching it. A real classic that you shouldn't miss!

OK - This is obviously not a great film by any stretch of the imagination but in its own silly way, it's a tremendously entertaining one. It reminds me of an early film operetta (like the original RIO RITA) except without the songs. The acting and script are, for the most part, pretty bad but that's part of the charm. John Wayne's performances certainly improved in later years but he was at his most handsome here--oozing sex appeal. And Luis Alberni has to be one of the great unsung character actors in Hollywood history. He is genuinely funny in this film---almost equaling his hilarious performance in THE GREAT GARRICK. The production values are surprisingly good for such a low budget effort, the print shown on TCM (which I assume is the same as the Warner DVD)is pristine and the plot moves like lightning. Give it a shot--you might have fun.

I completely agree with the prior comment. This is a lovely, iconic piece of Americana and really deserves to be more widely seen. I would like to add that I believe Haines gives probably his finest performance on film and Stahl has directed him and the rest of the cast with wonderful taste and sensitivity. I was lucky to see this at Film Forum in NYC a few years back with a terrific live piano accompaniment by Steve Sterner which incorporated the title song. I've since been hoping that TCM would commission a score and show this in their Silent Film series. I would also dearly love to own this on DVD. Perhaps now that the Warner Archive series has been initiated, it will show up some day soon -- fingers crossed!!