Torchy

In the early 1930s, Ray Cooke made 11 short films featuring the character, Torchy. Several are posted on YouTube and I've enjoyed all of them. Oddly, I saw this first one after I'd seen a few others!

Through the course of "Torchy", the title character loses jobs repeatedly...something you'd see in future Torchy films. First, he loses a job by talking out of turn. Next, he goes what seems like a sweet job...with a con-man! Torchy didn't know this...and is left looking for job #3...and manages to land one because the boss likes what he's seen.

Is this s rollicking comedy? No...but it's pleasant and enjoyable...and makes you want to see more.

Ray Cooke stars as Torchy in the first of a dozen shorts from 1931 through 1933. He gets fired from his job as an office boy, goes to work -- briefly -- for a phony gold mining company, then gets a job as Edmund Breese's office boy. Franklin Pangborn and Dorothy Dix fill out the cast.

Sewell Ford wrote a series of stories about the red-headed Torchy, and Johnny Hines rose to stardom as the character in the early 1920s. C. C. Burr, who produced the Hines series thought the character could be revived. This short mostly serves to introduce the character, and does so with a lot of charm.