Film & Shorts Discussions > Random Comedy Reviews

The Night Shirt Bandit (1938) - Charley Chase

(1/1)

Paul Pain:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030504/



This has to be one of the more bizarre efforts I have seen from Columbia over the years.  Charley Chase meets the sorority dorm.

This short is a full mix of typical Columbia tropes: scared lady, battle axe wives, borderline-racist black character, etc.  And then it has the Charley Chase touch.

Give Snowflake Toomes credit, though.  Racist writing or not, he is the best actor in this short.  He and Eva McKenzie are the highlights in a short that starts off well but then goes to hell in a burning handbasket.  The plot is full of holes, the characters are beyond the repairs done by suspension of disbelief, and certain gags are beaten to death.

Charley does well here and is quite handy as a sonambulist.  He does well with a lousy script.  I especially love his shock at catching himself and his repeated thefts.  As I said, the first reel his hilarious.  I'll ket the rest of you deal with the numerous negatives here.

The second reel can... BURN IN HELLTM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

6/10 [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke]

Dr. Mabuse:
The only Chase short directed by Jules White and, not surprisingly, one of the comedian's weaker Columbia efforts. Terribly uneven, but Charley is always worth watching.

6/10

metaldams:
There are some scenes, namely whenever an actor gets near that door with the boxing glove, where I can picture Jules White teaching the actor to act like Curly Howard.  I’m sure the Southern accents were a Jules idea too, complete with him leading the way.  Am I bothered by this?  Not here.  A fun short with a unique premise and a clever ending.  This has James C. Morton, Fred “Snowflake” Toones, Eva McKenzie in the most hysterical role I’ve seen her in, and a bunch a screaming young college beauties led by Marjorie Deanne in turns running from Chase in terror or playing Greek life games with him.  Chase looks old and out of touch compared to these girls versus playing the young romantic lead - exactly what he should be doing at this point in his career.  Chase himself is great, especially in the mirror scene where he berates himself for not being able to look into his own eyes.  Then there’s the line, “Why should there be a man under your bed?  There isn’t one under mine.”

I really like this short a lot.  Yeah it’s silly, but a lot of fun and it never drags and the mood gels consistently throughout.

Umbrella Sam:
Yeah...I really disliked this short. I haven’t seen most of the Chase Columbia shorts following this yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the weakest of the bunch, because it is really bad.

OK, here’s the thing: the initial premise seems like a good one. Chase being both the investigator as well as the bandit he’s supposed to be catching does seem like an idea with lots of potential, but it instead becomes a vehicle for Jules White to let things get out of control and just throw random plot points and other stupid things in it.

The first half of the short isn’t quite as painful as the second half, but it’s nothing to really talk about. I guess if I did have one positive thing to say, it’s that Eva McKenzie does do a convincing job in portraying hysterical state her character is supposed to be in. Beyond that, though, a lot of this is nothing more than exposition and setting up how Chase gets himself into more trouble. There really isn’t anything funny about it, but if it were leading to something good, I could find it forgivable.

Sadly, once Chase returns from stealing the money, things just get worse and worse. It starts off with Chase’s bland and annoying wife constantly yelling at him to get back to bed. While this is going on, we also have to sit through these ear piercing sounds of a dog and cat constantly barking and meowing, and once it finally ends, Chase ends up in this dorm and that noise is replaced by a bunch of screaming. The dorm also has all these dumb traps that have no logical reason for being there and for some reason everyone keeps falling for. They do that chair gag 4 times, and not once is it ever funny. Then there’s this dumb plot point about a basketball initiation that leads to the girls suddenly tying him up and doing initiation rituals on him, only for them to realize that they were right the first time and that he really was the Nightshirt Bandit. Jules, I beg of you, make up your mind as to what story you want to tell! I swear, it seems as though they just combined 3 or 4 shorts into one and didn’t think anymore of it.

Yeah, I know White did like his fast-paced nonsense, and it could work in some cases, but I don’t remember any of his shorts being this unfocused and out of control. And of all people, he chose to stick Chase with this garbage. It literally is as far from Chase’s style as you can get and while Chase is clearly trying to inject some of his style into it like with the mirror part, it’s just not enough to make up for all that goes around him.

Awful...just, awful!

2 out of 10

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