There It Is

This funny, wacky Charley Bowers comedy combines plenty of absurdist material with Bowers's trademark visual effects, along with plenty of sight gags and puns, to create an unusual and very entertaining short feature. As in so many of the short films that Bowers made, it has an odd kind of internal logic all its own, for all that it is completely off the wall and unpredictable.

Bowers plays a detective, sent to investigate the 'Fuzz-Faced Phantom', who is a wonderfully goofy concept. Aside from Bowers and the Phantom (played by Buster Brodie), most of the other characters have to play it straight and endure a series of indignities – that is, except for Charley's amusing assistant MacGregor, another imaginative conception that has to be seen to be appreciated.

Bowers squeezes quite a bit out of the material, and it keeps up an enjoyably manic pace for the entire running time, until it winds up the story and the case in an amusing way that seems entirely appropriate.