The Sunday Intertitle: His Master’s Teeth
A snippet of Charley Chase in MIGHTY LIKE A MOOSE. After his dental surgery, nobody recognizes Charley.
I’d seen a few CC films, even a few by Leo McCarey, but hadn’t been prepared for this film (although I’d been told it was excellent: I wasn’t sure whether to believe this). It has the silliest farce plot on record –
Charley is cursed with grotesque buck teeth. Children laugh at him in the street. His wife has a hideous great schnozz. But secretly, both have been saving for fix-ups. Charley sees the dentist in the same building his wife sees the rhinoplastician, and they meet on the way out. Failing to recognize each other, they flirt, both delighted to no longer repulse the opposite sex. Charley has been invited to a wild party by his dentist (even in the twenties, LA dentists apparently had a dodgy rep: they’re the guys with the legal cocaine, I guess) so he invites his new sweetheart along.
“No woman can resist my new teeth!”
Standard farce near-misses in the marital home, including the dog bit above. But man and wife manage to avoid colliding, and reconvene as lovebirds on the street corner. But the party is raided by police — Charley and his sweetie flee, separate — and then he’s shocked to find her in his house! Suppose his wife sees her?
Anyhow, Charley figures out the truth before his wife does, and resolves to teach her a lesson, staging a knockdown fight between his husband self (using the joke-shop teeth featured above) and his lover self — lots of quick changes. It escalates in absurdity, and may actually be the equal of the mirror routine Leo McCarey borrowed from Max Linder and restaged to classic effect in DUCK SOUP. This is a familiar gag, also used by Linder, in fact, but again the impossibility is amped up to eleven.
Fiona wandered in just as this scene was starting and nearly laughed herself sick.
Chase is very good, enjoying his new teeth at every opportunity. A light comedian’s style in a low comedian’s body, limbs and head. But much credit must go to McCarey for the stage-managing and decoupage. This is like a slapstick dress-rehearsal for THE AWFUL TRUTH, with goofier looking people and a goofier looking dog (which dons Charley’s false teeth in the penultimate shot).
The Charley Chase Collection, Vol. 1 (Slapstick Symposium)
The Charley Chase Collection, Vol. 2 (Slapstick Symposium)
February 5, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Must be the day for silliness … have been watching Linder’s ice-skating this morning. The dog absolutely had to end up wearing the teeth, I’d have felt short-changed if he hadn’t.
February 5, 2012 at 3:20 pm
You can see them arranging the whole architecture of the story just to get to that moment. Too bad Mr Smith the terrier in The Awful Truth never got his paws on some dentures.
February 5, 2012 at 3:55 pm
This prompted me to rewatch MLAM for the first time in ages – I was lucky enough to see it in the NFT with a packed house as part of Serge Bromberg’s brilliant, everchanging Retour de Flamme presentation. The audience howled through the final five minutes, but even the earlier, tortuous plot-construction stuff is pulled off with a self-mocking light touch that wins the viewer over immediately. Your description of Chase as a combination of light and low comedy is acute – he does the looks-to-camera and the funny faces, but somehow imbues them with a witty, self-aware quality that seems very modern. Previous to this I’d only known him as the “what a daub!” guy from Sons of the Desert, but he’s much more than that.
February 5, 2012 at 5:46 pm
I was just reading McCarey’s fond reminiscences of this film. He seemed pleased with the way the story was technically not about infidelity, though it really was.
Have you seen THE RAT’S KNUCKLES? It’s my favorite of the Chase/McCarey films I’ve caught.
If you want another dress rehearsal for THE AWFUL TRUTH, try to catch PART-TIME WIFE, my favorite of the pre-RUGGLES McCarey features.
February 5, 2012 at 6:15 pm
I’m not very familiar with Chase, but just saw the enjoyable knockabout “His Wooden Wedding”, directed by McCarey, It was the short before a beautifully restored print of LaCava’s “So’s Your Old Man” starring WC Fields.
February 5, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Thanks for the recommendations, Dan! This does indeed have me in the mood for more McCarey and Chase both.
And I think I maybe have a copy of His Wooden Wedding lurking around.
Next, I must watch some more Linder — everything I’ve seen lately seems to be leading me that way!
February 5, 2012 at 7:39 pm
McCarey’s lunacy is much in evidence in the early musical Let’s Go Native. Pretty much everyone’s absurd there, though the leading man is a bit dull.
February 5, 2012 at 11:07 pm
AAH!..I almost watched this last night as I had finally purchased the KINO disc with this one on it..I ended up watching a few others instead ..With Leo McCarey in mind ,I couldn’t help imagine the Chase films as close to what later screwball comedies would be if you scaled them down to 20mins..Clever situations over broad slapstick seem to be the name of the game in most of these..Everyone should have a look at the silent “one of a kind” Chase comedies..
February 6, 2012 at 8:49 am
I think that’s it — someone said Chase specialized in the comedy of embarrassment, and that’s much closer to screwball than to regular slapstick. And he uses contrived plots to get there. McCarey had a genius for contriving crazy stories, to be sure. And Chase himself worked (and drank) himself to death concocting this stuff.