False Impressions

After DOUBLING IN THE QUICKIES (see my review), the under-rated comedienne Marjorie Beebe teamed up once again with Lloyd Hamilton for this enjoyable comedy short. Hamilton and Beebe both work in a large department store--he in the toy department, she in the music department (which gives her a chance to sing a few sequences as she demonstrates songs for customers). One day while talking with a friend in the fur department and trying on an expensive fur, she sees a rich guy ("Windy Windemere, from Windemere Estate, Windemere, Long Island") looking at some merchandise and decides to pose as a rich customer to attract his attention. The next thing you know, she and her friend are invited to a party at his estate. Her friend Lloyd Hamilton comes along and impersonates a butler. Windy is more interested in the friend than in Marjorie, which sends her into a rage that generates many wild physical comedy sequences. There's a nice twist ending, and the whole short moves quickly and features lots of laughs. It's another opportunity to see the great Marjorie Beebe, and it's a nice showcase for her talents. Within a few years she was playing bit roles as older women in z-grade westerns, then she was gone from the screen, but Mack Sennett was an excellent judge of talent, and he spotlighted her in a number of vehicles in the early days of sound. Had Sennett not been in a serious business decline by 1932-33, perhaps he could have developed Marjorie Beebe as a major star in shorts and graduated her to features? Unfortunately, that didn't happen, but we can enjoy the fine shorts that she DID make, and FALSE IMPRESSIONS is a great example of her work. Running time is 20:00. I'm not that familiar with director Leslie Pearce, but he DID direct two classic shorts for Sennett: BILLBOARD GIRL with Bing Crosby, and THE DENTIST with W. C. Fields.

For a man with 235 film appearances according to IMDB, Lloyd Hamilton is clearly one of the more forgotten screen comics. While he was very popular in silents (including the godawful 'Ham and Bud' shorts), by the early 30s he was practically unemployable due to his alcoholism and had far fewer films to his credits during this era. In fact, only three years after "False Impressions", he would be dead as a result of his heavy drinking.

"False Impressions" is a short made for Paramount by Mack Sennett. Sennett himself had also fallen on hard times, losing his studio back in the 20s and working for others once again in the 20s and 30s.

The film begins at a department store where Lloyd works in the toy department. His girlfriend, Maizie (Marjorie Beebe), is giving Lloyd the cold shoulder, as she figures he'll never amount to much. Soon she meets some rich guy she pretends to be a society lady and she soon accepts an invitation to a party at his estate. Lloyd follows, disguised as a butler with a mustache.

While I found most of the film rather routine, the ending was quite funny. But I'll say no more because I don't want to spoil it. Despite Hamilton's stalled career at the time, he and the rest of the cast managed to make a fun little short.