This is a highly enjoyable, offbeat comedy from the unsung comic genius Charley Chase, and it also represents an important turning point in his career; you might call it the beginning of his Golden Age. During the 1924-25 season Chase polished his skills as a starring comedian in a series of one-reel comedies for the Hal Roach Studio. In these shorts Charley was known as "Jimmy Jump," and usually played a well-meaning but disaster-prone character he would explore further in two-reel comedies under his own name. The early Jimmy Jumps are generally fun and packed with gags, but the ten-minute running times didn't allow for much character development or elaborate plotting; the films sometimes feel rushed and end abruptly. Chase required the longer form to come into his own.
Looking for Sally is one of Charley's first two-reel comedies from this period, and the last in which he used the name Jimmy Jump. It feels like a combination of what he'd been doing for the previous year or so (i.e. gags galore), and a preview of the format he would use in his best comedies just ahead, with a more carefully structured plot and elements of farce. Here "Jimmy" and his leading lady Sally (Katherine Grant) play a pair of childhood sweethearts who have been separated for some twenty years, and are now to be reunited at a pier where his ocean liner is docking. In order to enjoy the show we have to accept the plot devices that 1) their parents want them to marry, although they haven't seen each other in many years; 2) neither one has any idea what the other looks like now; and 3) through a rather unlikely coincidence, Sally and Jimmy each see the wrong person at the dock (an ugly old man and a homely woman, respectively) and each mistakenly believes that they've spotted the other. So now Jimmy wants nothing to do with Sally and she feels likewise, but when they actually encounter each other, unknowingly, in a funny little "meet cute" scene on the pier, it's love at first sight. You with me so far? It's only after they've parted that Jimmy realizes he loves this girl and must track her down, but he can't find her. He tries to enlist the help of a tough cop (Leo Willis, who usually played crooks) but only manages to alienate the guy and make matters worse. He also attracts the unwelcome attention of a detective (Noah Young, familiar from Harold Lloyd's comedies). Eventually Jimmy learns that Sally is a social worker at a mission on Skid Row, where she ministers to the homeless. Naturally enough, he decides to disguise himself as a Fallen Man, a hobo in a shabby suit, to get her attention. At Sally's temperance meeting Jimmy takes the stage in this get-up and addresses the crowd, narrating the story of how liquor brought him low.
It's at this juncture, during the flashback/fantasy recital of Jimmy's downfall, that the movie falls back into the gag-happy style of the one-reel series. Jimmy's tales are patently absurd, and deliberately overplayed like a temperance melodrama of 1909. The flashback framework (and our knowledge that Jimmy is blatantly fabricating his stories) permits this reprise of the surreal, cartoon-y style, and the scenes are a comic highlight. After this sequence the players switch back to the semi-realistic mode as Jimmy doffs his disguise and, after further complications and a brief chase, persuades Sally that he really is that nice young man from the pier, not a crazy wino.
A brief outline of the plot of Looking for Sally can't convey how enjoyable, offbeat or funny it is. This film marked the beginning of Charley Chase's remarkable run of terrific comedies, and is a must-see for fans and silent comedy buffs.
