User Reviews

SPOILERS: It begins with Charley on board a ship, saying good-bye to the girl he fell in love with during the voyage (Peggy Stratford). When he gets home, he has to marry a woman he hasn't even seen since childhood -both sets of parents arranged the pairing years before. His valet, however, comes up with a way to solve the problem - if Charley acts crazy, the girl's father will call the marriage off and he'll be free to marry his shipboard sweetheart. The plan starts off great - Charley shows up at a party being held by the bride's family and his oddball behavior drives everyone else around him nuts. But then he sees his bride-to-be for the first time in 20 years...and it's the girl from the ship! A jumbled attempt at explaining himself to her father makes it clear that Charley will never resolve things, so he grabs the girl by the hand and they dash off to elope. Her angry father chases after them, but he's stopped by the ambulance attendants from the local asylum. They think he's the madman and cart him away. This picture was actually a remake of Chase's 1926 film, Crazy Like a Fox. Columbia recycled the plot a couple more times, first as 1943's You Dear Boy and in 1952 as Happy Go Wacky, both starring Vera Vague.

Yes, this is a re-make of a silent Chase short, but so far it is one of the best of his talkies I have seen. Sure, the premise is a little silly, but that is the whole point.

As the film opens, we see Charley and a woman in evening attire on a ship returning from China. It is a moonlit night, and Charley has to say goodbye to this woman, with whom he is obviously smitten. Upon returning to America, he is to marry a freckled face girl to whom his parents arraigned a marriage when they were kids. The scene is played strictly dramatic. Charley is not wearing the glasses that would become standard in his last films, and he looks as suave as ever in his tuxedo. Of course, the scene ends on a comic note...

Chase tries to get out of what he thinks will be a horrible marriage by trying to convince his father-to-be that he is nuts. Chase really looks like he was having fun with this one. One reviewer here feels his performance was not subtle, but I disagree. The scenes where he is walking outside with dad-to-be are a hoot because of his natural appearance while doing totally random, silly things. If any scenes are indeed a bit overdone, they would be later in the film when Chase has to try and prove he is NOT nuts.

All in all I rate this as one of Chase's funnier later shorts. There is no reason to write it off just because it was a remake.