The Grand Hooter

In his first two-reel comedy for COLUMBIA after being dumped by the Hal Roach studios, Charley plays a married man who prefers hanging with his lodge pals the Hoot Owls than staying home with his wife. Attempting to mend fences, Charley takes her on holiday to a swank hotel where, after a comedy of errors, he is pursued by a jealous husband whose wife received love letters from one of Charley's fellow Hoot Owls! I found this to be a really good comedy short which benefits from Del Lord's fine direction and Charley's comedic timing - he evens get to sing in his first film for the studio!!! THE GRAND HOOTER was remade years later almost frame for frame as a Shemp Howard vehicle, OPEN SEASON FOR SAPS.

When the short film begins, Charley (Charley Chase) returns home very, very, very late from a night out with his fellow lodge members, the Hoot Owls. His wife has fallen asleep a long time ago and he tries his best to enter their home without waking her. But she soon awakens and announces she's had enough of this--he's out with the Hoot Owls five times a week and if he goes to yet another meeting, she'll leave him! In desperation, he not only promises this but insists that he take her on a second honeymoon, since he was out with the Hoot Owls during their first! Once they arrive at the hotel, Charley begins flirting with a young lady. Not surprisingly, her husband is a very jealous sort and he soon arrives--ready to kill Charley. Can anything possibly save him?!

For the most part, this is just silly fun. While it's not close to the quality of Chase's older shorts with Hal Roach Studio, for his later films with Columbia it's pretty good. Full of the typical violence and mindless fun you'd expect from one of these films and nothing more. Oh, and if you are wondering, that IS Charley singing--he had a very nice voice and used it in quite a few of his films.

Charley Chase was very successful in one of his only feature film appearances, as a wild-partying lodge mate of his coworkers Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy on the Hal Roach lot in their 1933 feature "Sons of the Desert." Here he takes on the Laurel-and-Hardy role from that film himself, as a man who is determined to spend time with his ledge buddies despite the loud objections of his hostile wife. As if in tribute, Charley wears a bowler hat and bow tie for the first few scenes, and later even exclaims "A fine mess you've gotten me into!" Perhaps these are coincidences, but this is Charley's first short subject away from Hal Roach studios after starring in short comedies there since 1924, and Laurel and Hardy had paid him tribute with a cameo appearance in his last short there, "On the Wrong Trek." Chase had about a year off between that film and this, his for Columbia pictures. It shows off that he definitely hasn't lost his touch for generating laughter.

The first ten minutes of this film are the funnier, as Charley goes through an ingenious series of gags designed to appease and deceive his shrewish wife about his fraternal activities. The Hoot Owls' ritual greeting is good for a laugh every time in itself.

The second half of the film is still funny but becomes a little more generic and less uniquely Charley Chase when some plot involving a violent Hispanic stereotype is injected into. This allows Charley to move into the comedy of embarrassment that he does so well (and to do a charming musical number in Spanish, which is a very memorable image), but it's not a seamless transition. There's some odd subtext going on as Charley is forced to dress in drag and hide his moustache with a fan, then gets hit on by the macho Latin lover.

This plays liberally on the pervasive comedy trope of the man running off to spend time with his lodge while his wife fumes which seemed to be inescapable in the 1930s. It meshes very well with the wife-as-antagonist shorthand in many comedy shorts. It's good to see that Charley Chase's take on it does his comedy justice.

The final joke, which I won't reveal, wraps up a running gag in a very funny way. Not as good as his best work with Hal Roach -- or his best work with Columbia is upcoming shorts -- but it is good, and shows Charley could make the transition to the new studio with apparent ease.