Torchy Raises the Auntie

In the early 1930s, Ray Cooke starred in about a dozen Torchy short comedies. I've seen about half of them and only recently has a nice person posted several of the films on YouTube. In general, the style is pretty similar...up and coming office boy, Torchy, gets into trouble but through luck and determination, makes good by the end of the film. They aren't among the funnier shorts of the day, but they are pleasant and entertaining.

When the story begins, the big boss's Aunt Zenobia comes for a visit. At first, he asks his stick-in-the-mud office manager to escort the ladies on a night on the town...but the boss' daughter (who is definitely interested in Torchy) asks that Torchy also accompanies them.

When they get to the restaurant, it's obvious that aside from Torchy and the boss' daughter, the rest are real party poopers. However, when laughing gas is accidentally released in the nightclub, they all let down their hair and have a great time.

Okay...the idea of laughing gas is incredibly contrived and ridiculous. First, why would ANY nightclub have a giant bottle of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) there in the first place? And, it's in the kitchen!! Second, laughing gas, despite what you see in old films, doesn't make everyone laugh or get high like that. Because of this and because it's so overdone, the film isn't quite up to the series' standards...though I did enjoy the final sight gag...it was so weird!

Ray Cooke's employer needs to raise $100,000 to retain control of his company. He hopes to get them from his cousins. When the old ladies show up, they are sent to a restaurant with office manager Franklin Pangborn, his daughter, Dorothy Dix, and Cooke. Cooke and Miss Dix are having a dull time, but the restaurant has a supply of laughing gas, as restaurants apparently did back then, and its release causes the older people to become very silly.

It's up to Cooke to maintain control and shepherd the ladies back home, which results in some low-pressure hijinks. Some nice gag sequences are scattered throughout the short, but it's not a terribly good short comedy.

For some reason, the TV print I looked at changed the title to TORCHY RAISES THE AUNTIES, which is more accurate, but not as clever.