"No Father to Guide Him" is another of Charley Chase's consistently excellent short subjects, from early his career as a star of two-reelers, and it's quite hilarious, taking Charley's comedy of embarrassment forte to some absurd and very funny extremes. It casts him as a father -- a more domestic role in theory than the go-getter types he was playing at this juncture in his career. The opening is actually rather poignant as Charley the milkman is seen desperately sneaking into his ex-wife's house so he can see his little son.
It soon develops into surreal farce, though, with this rather touching underpinning, as a series of gags revolve around Charley nabbing his son. Then, in the real highlight of the short, there is a central bravura sequence in which Charley ends up at sea without his clothes, then paraded around the street wearing a woman's kimono. In some odd-looking shots that are maybe indicative of Los Angeles at the time, the beach seems to run right up to a city street. In a cameo role from Duke Kahanamoku as a lifeguard, there is a risqué gay joke about the danger of the two leaving the water together with Chase naked. Child actor Mickey Bennett gets a whole lot to do, and he handles the comedy very well indeed.
This short as funny as you might expect from the two-reel farce artist of the absurd that was Charley Chase, but it deals with a somewhat more grim and potentially-sentimental subject than he usually essays in it story about an estrangement leading to what is technically a kidnapping. That humanistic backing works very well in compliment and contrast to the wacky comedy elements, actually -- and this is as effective as the later Chase shorts that took place in a self-consciously effervescent, musical world.
It soon develops into surreal farce, though, with this rather touching underpinning, as a series of gags revolve around Charley nabbing his son. Then, in the real highlight of the short, there is a central bravura sequence in which Charley ends up at sea without his clothes, then paraded around the street wearing a woman's kimono. In some odd-looking shots that are maybe indicative of Los Angeles at the time, the beach seems to run right up to a city street. In a cameo role from Duke Kahanamoku as a lifeguard, there is a risqué gay joke about the danger of the two leaving the water together with Chase naked. Child actor Mickey Bennett gets a whole lot to do, and he handles the comedy very well indeed.
This short as funny as you might expect from the two-reel farce artist of the absurd that was Charley Chase, but it deals with a somewhat more grim and potentially-sentimental subject than he usually essays in it story about an estrangement leading to what is technically a kidnapping. That humanistic backing works very well in compliment and contrast to the wacky comedy elements, actually -- and this is as effective as the later Chase shorts that took place in a self-consciously effervescent, musical world.
