Mum's the Word

I have't seen enough of Charley Chase's films to say if this is one of his best or worst, but of the ones I've seen, I'd have to say this is one of his better ones (I saw "Mighty Like a Moose" the other day and I thought that, overall, it wasn't as good as this one). The premise--Charley's mother has remarried but, for reasons of her own, hasn't told her new husband about Charlie. When he shows up for a visit, she has him pretend that he's a valet she's just hired--isn't particularly inventive, but Chase manages to do quite a bit with it. The first half of the film drags (actually, it drags quite a bit) but the last half picks up considerably. Young--she was only 19 when she made this--and very sexy Martha Sleeper plays Charley's love interest, who turns out to have been hired as the live-in maid of the house just when Charley gets there. Sleeper was a revelation to me--I had never heard or her before, and when I looked up her credits I was astounded to find out that she had appeared in almost 100 films. She had only been in the business for three years when she made this, but she handled her end like a pro. She and Charley worked very well together, especially in a funny scene where Charley is attempting to shave his new stepfather and Sleeper is trying to shine Charley's shoes at the same time (don't ask). She had a real flair for comedy, and didn't play it too broadly--which some actresses do when they don't have that much experience doing comedy--and had real chemistry with Chase. Plus, as I said, she's quite hot.

It looks like I think more of this picture than most of the others who've reviewed it here. I guess they've seen more of Charley's work than I have, but if this is an example of a Charley Chase film that ISN'T one of his better ones, than I'm going to have to check out a lot more of his work, because I think this short is really quite funny.