- Benchley shows how to budget one's time during lunch hour to get things done efficiently. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned.
- Robert Benchley demonstrates how to use a lunch hour when one has several things to do besides eat lunch. He goes to the barbershop to get a haircut but his favorite barber is busy. He drops by a department store to exchange a shirt that was the wrong size, but when he gets there he finds he left the shirt in his office. Then comes an attempt to grad a quick lunch at a drugstore counter but a man waiting behind him for his seat makes him so nervous that he leaves half his food untouched. And once back in his office he finds he has indigestion.—Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>
- Joe Doekes (Robert Benchly) has an hour for lunch and a list of errands to get done. Joe lectures us as an expert on time management and the need to spend your time budgeted lunch hours as economically as you would spend a dollar. Immediately he struggles to find a space on the elevator to get down to the street level. Finally, on the street, he is greeted by an annoying acquaintance, Harry, (John Butler) who wants to waste Joe's time. The barber shop is full and he is told to come back later. Joe realizes he forgot the shirt he was going to exchange in the office upstairs. He is distracted by a huckster selling toys on the street and buys a toy giraffe. He stops to take his weight which makes him scowl but is pleased with the personality assessment on the reverse side of the ticket. With the drug store counter completely full, he seeks to call an upholstered to pick up a sofa at his residence. He looks up the number in the phone book but forgets it while fumbling with the giraffe and adjusting the phone. Stepping out to recapture the phone number in this memory, he loses the phone booth when a lady occupies it. Returning to the lunch counter, Joe does find a seat, but then is ignored by the waiter. When he is noticed, Joe doesn't have his order ready. Finally, the waiter returns and he orders a sandwich and a glass of milk. An angry looking man stares at him, seeking to occupy his seat. This makes Joe wolf down only half his lunch before he leaves. Joe's annoying friend trails him out of the drug store so Joe ducks into the Men's Clothing store still without the shirt he meant to exchange and wastes the time of the sale's clerk (Don Castle) as well as his own. He checks at the barber shop which is still busy and promises the barber to return to tomorrow through the window. Checking his watch, Joe's lunch hour is over. Back in his office, Joe has accomplished almost nothing on his initial list. He offers us that advice that "in making up our time budget for the lunch hour, we must make allowance for a few minutes of unforeseen incidentals."
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content