The copy of this movie which I saw this evening at the Museum of Modern Art was in pretty rough shape, with no titles to let the audience know what was happening. As near as I could figure, Arthur Sprague -- he looked like a pudgy Wallace Shawn -- is deep in debt, so when a creditor is due from out west, he fakes his death and goes into hiding. Enter Charles Waldron -- he looks like Adolphe Menjou might have if he had let himself go in his fifties -- a rootin' tootin' westerner in chaps and spurs, who fires his guns at the ceiling and announces he intends to stay until Waldron shows up.
The humor in this is of the barely suppressed violence variety, with little in the way of gag construction or plot. Although director Al Christie would wind up doing better when he became purely a producer, his success at this stage was more a matter of the endless demand for any movies whatsoever.
The humor in this is of the barely suppressed violence variety, with little in the way of gag construction or plot. Although director Al Christie would wind up doing better when he became purely a producer, his success at this stage was more a matter of the endless demand for any movies whatsoever.
