Don't Tell Dad

The real problem with the archive version available of this film is not that it is lacking intertitles but that it is clearly missing the very beginning of the film so one has to make a few assumptions. The father of the boy is having an argument with his son because the latter is refusing to marry a girl he has never seen (waiting nextdoor in the company of her maiden aunt). Normally the reason for such an arrangement in early films is financial - the girl is perhaps the daughter of an old friend who has died leaving his money to the couple provided they marry. The father in all probability faces ruin if they do not and there seems to be some sort of time limit involved too.

When the boy takes a look at his intended wife, he sees the maiden aunt and believes her to be his fate, so decides to run off. The girl, who has not seen him, is informed by the maiden aunt that he is however a dish, but when she takes a peek, the young man had already left and the father is talking to a little shrimp with a pince-nez(the lawyer?) whom the girl supposes with a certain horror to be her intended. So she runs away too and, in the taxi going to the railway station, meets by chance (in traffic) the man of her dreams in another taxi. It is of course in fact the dishy intended but she doesn't know that nor does he. He falls in love with her too at first sight and goes in pursuit.

Meanwhile the boy's father employs a detective (Eagle Eye) to go in search of him and bring him back. So girl, boy and detective all end up (still quite separately) at the railway station and then on the train (where they lose the detective who gives chase on a train trolley).

Amidst a good deal of fairly unfunny slapstick, boy and girl finally get acquainted. The detective has now caught up but is not aware that the girl in question is the one the boy is any case supposed to marry, so reports to the father that his son is canoodling with an unknown (thus of course supposedly jeopardising the necessary marriage arrangement).

To avoid the detective, the boy dresses up in drag (which in fact of course the opposite result) and explains the fact to the girl. Father and lawyer have meanwhile arrived to meet the train and the boy, discovered, tries to escape them, giving rise to a not very comical comical chase.

In the end the girl reappears (no one seems ever to have bothered about her disappearance) and the two are forcibly married (having rather improbably faced away from each other during the very brief ceremony) to discover......

Clear as mud in fact.

Charley Chase had in fact played in a rather better film with a very similar theme earlier in the year (Looking for Sally).

I'm not sure what they're supposed to be keeping from the old man, since the copy of the film that I saw was from a South American Archive, filled with notices of its provenance and stripped of any title cards. Still, the story is simple and clear: Ralph Graves has spotted Dorothy Kingston and fallen for her at first sight. He pursues her onto a train, while being followed by Marvin Loback.

Although Ralph Graves was not a comedian, he was Mack Sennett's big idea at the time, intended to compete with Harold Lloyd, a real actor who could drag the audience in off the streets. Sennett's plethora of gagmen and supporting comics could make him look good, and it works here as he pulls off some nice small gags, including a starting "chase" that falls apart and an extended sequence in which he winds up with ladies' underwear in his jacket pocket.

It's not among the best of Sennett's productions, but it's fine and if I was able to see it in a form more like the one released by the studio, I might have a higher opinion.