Manhattan Monkey Business

Co-directed accidentally gives doorman a 20 not 1 finlayson in cowboy hat adn toupee.

In this film co-directed by Charley (using his real name, Charlet Parrot), Charley plays a working class stiff who has decided to save up his money for one night on the town at the Ritz. However, although he looks just fine in his tuxedo, he makes a huge mistake and accidentally tips the doorman $20 instead of $1. Of course, he doesn't realize the mistake until it's time to pay the bill...so the management make him wait tables and do dishes to pay for what he ate and drank. Unfortunately, he's simply terrible at being a waiter. But, oddly, a rich Texan (played, of all folks by James Finlayson!) thinks he recognizes Charley and invites him to sit with him and his pretty daughter (Joyce Compton). What's next?

Having the Scottish actor, Finlayson, playing a Texan sure was odd casting! Despite this, it's a pleasant little comedy....one of Charley's better ones of the era.

Guess I'm the first person to review this short. Wish I had something better to say about it. It's a fairly corny little comedy about a guy who can't pay his dinner bill so he's put to work waiting tables. As you might expect from having seen anything ever, comedy ensues. Or at least it's supposed to. Instead you get lame gags like fake mustaches and pulling a guy's toupee off in public. It's all harmless enough but not very sophisticated or funny for that matter. This is my first exposure to Charley Chase and I don't think I'll be calling him one of the comedy greats anytime soon. For some reason he seems very pleased by his own antics, even making himself laugh. Some of the background players laughed too. I guess you had to be there. Oh I did like cutie Joyce Compton though. She alone was worth watching it.

Charley Chase has saved up enough money to rent an evening suit and have $21 -- the equivalent of $420 in 2021 -- for dinner at the Ritz. At the restaurant he is distracted by Joyce Compton and mistakenly tips the doorman with his $20 bill, leaving him one dollar to pay a check for $19.60

So you have Chase in good form, Miss Compton, a fine farceur in her skivvies, and Jimmy Finlayson in a bad toupee. You know you're in for a good time. Chase even got Hal Roach to shell out real money for a contemporary hit, Hammerstein & Romberg's "When I Grow To Old To Dream."