The Sunday Intertitle: Give Chase a Chance

This intertitle, from the Charley Chase-Leo McCarey short HIS WOODEN WEDDING, strikes me as the greatest achievement of western civilisation. Of course, by tomorrow I may have a new favourite… Seems likely the whole film grew from this one pun, since it’s the most “logical”, compact and perfect aspect of the movie. Getting to the line requires considerable ingenuity upon McCarey’s part, and considerable suspension of disbelief for the audience.

Charley is about to be wed when his malicious rival slips him a note –

Two funny things — the insanity of the rival’s scheme, and the fatuous signature “A FRIEND.” Plot contrivances pile up like rugby players, eventually convincing Charley that the note speaks true.

Charley immediately imagines what married life will be like a few years hence, in this Nightmare Vision of the Future –

All Charley’s clan have Long John Silver peg-legs (his wife still looks quite normal, but Charley isn’t taken in by that).

Even Buddy the dog gets in on the act. (Yay, Buddy!)

It’s getting so that a Chase film without an appearance from Buddy leads to disappointment as inevitably as a film with Jeffrey Hunter in it. The only acceptable substitute is Josephine the monkey. I long to see Chase’s Tarzan spoof, NATURE IN THE WRONG, because it has a great title, because the idea of Chase as Tarzan is very fine, because it features Charles Gemora as a gorilla and James Finlayson as the voice of a lion, and because Josephine must surely turn up somewhere in there. (Plot: “Charlie receives a letter from a company in Texas telling him he’s related to Tarzan.”)

I recollect a gag very similar  to the peg-leg family in The Simpsons when Aunt Selma is contemplating marriage to the short-sighted Hans Moleman. Her imagination conjures a room full of myopic kids, stampeding around, crashing into each other and the furniture. I seem to recall one toppling out the window. All in a shot just few seconds long.

(I think the swipe is perfectly allowable, even if deliberate, and I’ve unconsciously pilfered from The Simpsons myself so I’m in no position to throw stones…)

Next week I really will write about Max Linder…