I do not know where the Welsh reviewer gets the notion that Jules Mendel plays the detective in this film. The detective is played by the costumier and celebrated female impersonator Frederick Ko Vert.
The reviewer ingeniously invents a fake biography for Mr. Mendel who was a heavily-built balding fellow who appears in innumerable small parts in Roach films (see http://www.lordheath.com/menu1_1145.html for several examples). Since the hat-salesman here is played by William Gillespie, the only part that Mendel could be playing (although it doesn't look much like him) is the whiskered passer-by in the early scenes. "Jules" was his stage-name. His real name was Jewel Mendel.
The reviewer ingeniously invents a fake biography for Mr. Mendel who was a heavily-built balding fellow who appears in innumerable small parts in Roach films (see http://www.lordheath.com/menu1_1145.html for several examples). Since the hat-salesman here is played by William Gillespie, the only part that Mendel could be playing (although it doesn't look much like him) is the whiskered passer-by in the early scenes. "Jules" was his stage-name. His real name was Jewel Mendel.