The Way of All Pants (1927)

A man delivering a pair of trousers loses his own pants, setting off a chaotic sequence of events.

Directors:

Leo McCarey, F. Richard Jones

Writer:

H.M. Walker (titles)

Stars:

Charley Chase, Edna Marion, Hazel Howell

Cast

Cast overview:
Charley Chase	...	Charley
Edna Marion
Hazel Howell
Frank Leigh
Tom Dugan	...	(as Tommy Dugan)
Buddy the Dog

Storyline

A man is delivering a pair of trousers that a woman has ordered for her husband. She asks him to try them on himself, so that she can see how they fit. But as he is in the middle of changing, the husband arrives home, sees the apparent intruder, and asks a detective to help catch him. Caught without his own pants, the delivery man manages to take the detective's pants from him, setting off a chaotic series of similar incidents.

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Plot Keywords:

detective | trousers | slapstick | dinner party | lost trousers

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Genres:

Short | Comedy

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

29 October 1927 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Hal Roach Studios

Technical Specs

Runtime:

9 min 9 min (video)

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Edited into The Further Perils of Laurel and Hardy (1967)

User Reviews

Does All Right For a One-Gag Film

This short comedy is essentially a one-gag film, but it does all right with the idea, managing to come up with enough variations and uses of the basic idea to make it worth seeing. Charley Chase plays the main character, and though it's one of the less substantial efforts, it does have its moments.

Chase plays a delivery boy who brings a pair of trousers to a wife who ordered them for her husband. When she asks him to model the pants for her, it sets off a chain of slapstick events, all revolving around mismatched and /or missing pants. The idea is very familiar from many other comedies of the era, and so this one doesn't stand out in any way. It does have enough laughs, though, to be worth seeing.

As the previous commentator has also implied, the currently available version seems to be missing some of the original footage, since there are a couple of apparent gaps, most particularly at the beginning. The missing footage may have clarified some of the details, but most likely would not change the nature of the material that much.