The Super Snooper

Wealthy Andy Clyde's daughter, Dorothy Dix, is in love Jason Robards Sr. Andy's never met him, and knows nothing about him, so he bribes a hotel porter to take his place where Robards works. What he doesn't know is that Robards is an undercover cop investigating a ring of jewel thieves at the hotel. He decides Andy is one of the gang and has him hauled off to jail, where there is a very funny scene with Andy in a lineup.

Clyde specialized in playing older men from an early age, and unlike many of his other short-form comics, reacted slowly and clumsily to the situations he got into, resulting in particularly amusing comic mayhem. He started out at Sennett, and when Sennett started collapsing, went to Educational, where he made this funny comedy. That lasted a short while, before he went to Jules White's short-comedy division at Columbia. There he spent 20 years turning out hundreds of funny comedies, while appearing as the comic sidekick to various cowboy stars, particularly William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy. After Columbia closed down the short-comedy division, he continued performing on television, his old-man character finally who he really was.

"The Super Snooper" is a comedy short from Educational Pictures that stars Andy Clyde, a comedian from the silent era that continued making comedy shorts well into the sound era as well as starring as Hopalong Cassidy's sidekick in the majority of his westerns.

Andy plays a rich and well-respected man. But he's concerned what sort of boyfriend his daughter might have gotten as she's talking marriage and her previous boyfriends were very short-term and he didn't like them very much. So, when he learns where this boyfriend works, he goes undercover as a porter there to spy on him. Unfortunately, he ends up befriending the wrong folks and thinks the boyfriend is a crook...when it's really these new 'friends' who are jewel thieves. To see what happens next, see the film...and you really should.

This is a very cute film. Clyde is very good and seeing all the crazy thing happen to him (particularly at the police lineup) is quite funny and well worth seeing. And, I was surprised, as Clyde's later shorts for Columbia were generally a sad lot.