Topic: From Bad to Worse (1937) - Charley Chase

[Paul Pain]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028904

The book "The Charley Chase Talkies: 1929-1940," to which I referred last week, gets this short all screwed up.  I cannot say for sure because Google books only lets you see selections and thus the seeming mistakes.

We have another typical Charley Chase domestic situation.  It's the usual flavor.  Married (in this case newlywed) Charley gets in compromising situations, angers his wife, and also angers a jealous husband/boyfriend.  We're used to this, and it's helped by Columbia's strong supporting cast, featuring Bud Jamison as the jealous husband.

Charley takes a lot of lumps here.  In some cases, it's hilariously obvious that it's a dummy.  Big Chief Apumtagribonitz would holler out loud at those moments.  He's falling out of windows, train berths, and card games.  He crawls through secret hatches, flies down ladders, etc.  It's a bit too much of the Columbia vase-smashing and the like that the humor relies upon in this.  In short, it's too much about the mayhem and not enough about the characters.

The most interesting bit is the slow buildup to the chase scene.  It slowly amplifies with various references to the gangster's jealousy and is capped by Joe and Charley's exchange whereby Charley realizes the danger at hand.  Classic Charley Chase style buildup.  The buildup and chase are where Charley and Bud's talents really shine here; they're in top for.  The ending was sudden and awkward.

An interesting short to say the least...one above average anyway, but far from the best plot or character development.

8/10

[metaldams]

      Definitely a step up from THE GRAND HOOTER.  Yes, another domestic confusion plot, but this one is a bit more creative and tense.  For one, Charley for the most part is legitimately innocent here minus when  he goes along with lying about being a “Casanova.”  Lots of situations, like falling into the wrong bunk with another woman  thinking it’s his wife and coincidentally helping the same woman, now a neighbor unlock her door and it being framed he’s cheating. 

      Good stuff, but yes, the real highlight is watching Bud Jamison and Charley Chase in those few minutes where we know Charley is falsely bragging about the blonde to Bud and Bud, a jealous husband, figures out it’s his wife Charley refers too.  Things get better when the wife enters the room and I like the chase on the ledge at the end.  The build up to the chase was all worth it and that writing, combined with Charley and Bud selling the plot, make this short worth a view.

[Umbrella Sam]

The beginning to this one feels a bit slow. I don’t know what it is, but about 80% of the time, stuff involving people on trains just isn’t that funny to me. I think a lot of it does have to do with the super confined space, but it really doesn’t amount to much other than introducing the issue Chase has to overcome.

Once it gets to the hotel, though, this actually does start to become more consistently funny. The gag with Chase trying to get inside the small door is funny and the comic suspense of both Chase and Bud Jamison’s character figuring the whole situation out is actually quite clever. It’s funny seeing Chase continually making an idiot out of himself because we know that it’s just making Jamison’s rage even bigger. This all results in a really good chase scene involving Chase on the ledge and the whole problem actually getting resolved (well, at least for Chase. Poor Joe).

8 out of 10