Stan and Ollie hadn't yet become Stan and Ollie. In this one, they're strangers. Stan is a taxi driver who finds himself unwittingly a stowaway on a cruise ship. Ollie is the Purser. Also aboard are a drunken millionaire and a lady con artist whose midget husband poses as a baby and helps her cheat at cards.
Various gags follow, some slapstick and some an iota more sophisticated, as when the "baby" entices Stan into shooting craps and uses loaded dice. Do people still shoot craps? It seems a lost form of gambling, just as shooting marbles among kids has disappeared.
It's a silent picture and it's interesting to see that Stan's character is far more assertive than it was to become in the next few years. Stan has also developed his "crying face" which seems only half there without the accompanying whine of distress.
Various gags follow, some slapstick and some an iota more sophisticated, as when the "baby" entices Stan into shooting craps and uses loaded dice. Do people still shoot craps? It seems a lost form of gambling, just as shooting marbles among kids has disappeared.
It's a silent picture and it's interesting to see that Stan's character is far more assertive than it was to become in the next few years. Stan has also developed his "crying face" which seems only half there without the accompanying whine of distress.