Sure-Mike!

This was another Hal Roach comedy I saw on the one DVD set of Hal Roach Rarities from Alpha Home Entertainment. Martha Sleeper plays a retail worker who arrives at her job late though for a while she fools her employer. She has a romance with someone in her store but he's not who she imagines him to be. Meanwhile, someone who takes her to work on his bike is someone who likes her but she doesn't reciprocate...This was quite a visual treat with many gags meant for the eye doing quite well especially when one of them involves James Finlayson as a floorwalker! Ms. Sleeper has quite a charming presence here. The print wasn't the best but it was okay for such an old one. So on that note, I recommend Sure-Mike! if you ever encounter it.

Before the advent of Lucille Ball, The US film industry tended to systematically underrate its slapstick comediennes. How few films there are even by Alice Howell (sometimes described as the female Chaplin). Martha Sleeper is another good example of a comedienne never given the chance she deserved. She is charming and highly skillful in this film (which depends entirely upon her) and the film itself is, for US slapstick, pleasantly lacking in ugly violence (I had just previously watched the perfectly disgusting Roach comedy Should Sailors Marry? which came out in the same year)and with a coherent story set in a believable real-life situation which, short though it is, contains a neat little social moral. One just wishes there had been more of this sort of comedy made.....

This short slapstick comedy, starring Martha Sleeper as a friendly but highly disorganized woman working at a counter in a department store, has a few good moments. Sleeper has a lot of energy, and things move very quickly, although it probably would been better if the pace had been just a little slower at times, in order to set up and highlight the better gags. Having James Finlayson in the cast (here in a role as a fussy floorwalker) always helps out. Overall, it's not anything special, but it's probably worth watching if you enjoy silent slapstick comedies.

Martha Sleeper oversleeps and arrives at the department store late. She's smitten with new manager William Gillespie and has to deliver some packages to a customer in this funny one-shot starring role.

Miss Sleeper came to Roach from Century's kiddie-comedies in 1924. Roach intended her for OUR GANG, but despite her tender years, she was too mature. When she made this comedy, she was all of 14 years years old! She was out of short subjects after 1928, and retired from films after 1936, with an appearance in 1946's THE BELLS OF SAINT MARY; director Leo McCarey knew her from their days at Roach.

Women didn't often star in silent comedy shorts. Outside of e genius comedian such as Chaplin, Keaton, etc. This can stand with the best of them and the best starring a woman that I've ever seen! Sadly it's only one reel and not two. So there's not enough time to develop the plot, but boy this moves! Has some great and unique gags, physical comedy, terrific cast including Finlayson and Fay Wray and the streets of LA! Sleeper is charming. Pretty but knows how to be goofy too! It doesn't get much better than this.