Just watched this one. Like The Three Stooges shorts vs. The Laurel and Hardy Nazi films, this falls in with the former in that the Nazis were pretty bumbling and the comedy was kept important versus heavy drama. The Stan and Ollie MGM stuff can be way too serious at times - so yes, good job to Columbia for keeping things light.
An OK enough short and I agree it works better as a Columbia versus a Langdon. Still, Langdon gets his little hand wave and his stilted comic delivery in just enough. Still, the part where’s he’s getting bandaged up, while fun to watch, could have been done by any comedian.
The whole perform slapstick on people to get them to case you to a location was done with a twist here. A staple of a zillion silent comedians, usually it’s to get cops to chase the comedian so they can be lead to the bad guys. Here, the cops want nothing to do with it so it’s citizens who get led in a chase. Also, yes, at the end, the whole “What’s the Matador” ending. I knew exactly what was going to happen before it happened and I’ve never seen this short until now.
Minor Langdon. Standard Columbia. Acceptable entertainment.
