Double Up

This is a short comedy that gets decent mileage out of one basic gag. Hen-pecked husband Leon meets a man who looks exactly like him, and he thinks he has found a solution to all his problems. He pays the double to keep his wife and mother-in-law company, while Leon himself goes out to play cards with his friends. Naturally, things do not work out as planned, and it leads to some fairly funny moments. It's all very predictable, but the scenes where the doubles run into each other are done rather well, and the overall effect is pretty amusing.

Leon Errol can't go out for a night of poker with the boys. His living-room chair is co-opted by his mother-in-law's dog; and she's thrown away his pipe tobacco to use the humidor to hold her knitting wool. Finally, wide Dorothy Christy lets Leon go to the corner store to get a six-cent cigar. On the way, he encounters his own double, whom he hires to play him while he enjoys a night out with the boys.

They don't even bother to do split-screen effects in this short; they simply shoot Leon acting in one register, then cut away to Leon acting in another. It's fairly effective, and a good reminder that comic acting is acting.

Look at the old comedy pros in the poker game with Leon. We shall not look on their like again.