One of the Family

One of the Family (1924)

** (out of 4)

The second film in Hal Roach's Jimmy Jump series finds the young man getting a job as a chauffeur but not realizing he's basically been hired to make a woman's husband jealous. Charley Chase as Jimmy is in fine form but the screenplay here really lets him down because there's really not much of anything going on. I think the biggest problem is that it seems the entire running time is trying to set you up for the final minute. This is a problem for a couple reasons and the first is that the build up contains no laughs. The only problem is that the pay off at the end isn't funny either. What we basically have are a few scenes with Jimmy getting in trouble with the husband but none of them work in terms of laughs. Another fine example of some lazy writing is during a dinner scene where Jimmy is invited to by a girl (Blanche Mehaffey) he likes. The entire scene is built around her relatives being slobs and we once again get no laughs. I think what keeps the 10-minute short going is the obvious chemistry between Chase and Mehaffey.

"One of the Family" was the second one-reel comedy that Charley Chase made under the name of Jimmy Jump, and while it is not quite as funny as the first, "At First Sight," it does show Chase stable in the character that is already recognizable as the one that would be most associated with him in the future. It is almost two films connected by some humorous intercomplications, which is an achievement itself within in span on only ten minutes.

The scenarios deal with Charley being hired as a chauffeur and unwittingly being used to make an older woman's husband jealous, and, dressed for work, being invited to dinner at a poor family's house. The mounting complications are well-calculated and funny, but it doesn't all cohere as well as in some of his other films. The dinner scene, while excellently played, mainly revolves around the joke that the poor family is rustic and does not know table manners. A funny entry and worth watching, but not as unified or brilliant as other shorts in the series.