User Reviews

This is a fast 4 or 5 minutes comedy, in the tradition of Mack Sennett's films. Everybody runs all the time and gets knocks. There have been thousands af shorts like this one in the silent era, but it's rare to see them today. I saw it on TV, at the end of a Douglas Fairbanks film. There was only that title : Soup to nuts. No actors, no director. Thanks to IMDB to help me find this one ! The story ? A butler gets the house all messed up ! That's it, folks!

Of the four or five big producers of silent comedy in the 1920s -- Roach, Sennett, Educational, Christie and, oh, probably one or two others -- whose work survive in some quantity, Christie ranks down near the bottom for my taste. Most of their stuff is competently done, but rather mechanical, with the set-up leading directly to the gag.

But they occasionally turned out a very good one, and this is one of them, due, in no part, to Gale Henry, a tall, gawky-looking woman who, like all good comics, was fearless and without a sense of embarrassment. Some of her best work was done with Charley Chase and she really shines there in two of his best, MIGHTY LIKE A MOOSE and HIS WOODEN WEDDING, but she comes off pretty well on her own in shorts like THE DETECTRESS and in support in OPEN ALL NIGHT.

The large part of her charm is that she played a physically unattractive woman, and never asked for our sympathy. Notice the indignity she goes through in being rescued from the fire here.

While Miss Henry does not make SOUP TO NUTS a great comedy, she makes it more than usually funny.