Love, Loot and Cash (1915)
** (out of 4)
Keystone short has a father growing tired of messing up dinner so he puts an ad in the paper for a cook. A thief (Fritz Schade) dresses in drag and ends up getting job with plans on stealing everything in the house. As he makes his getaway thankfully the Keystone Cops are around and the chase is on. I'd be lying if I said I was a fan of the Keystone Cops. I've only seen a handful of their shorts so perhaps I just haven't seen the right one yet but I always find their films to lack any real laughs and that trend continues here. I didn't really laugh any during this film and I was especially disappointed in the way Schade was used. I've become a fan of his through the BECOMING CHARLEY CHASE set (where I watched this) and found him to be very funny but it seems like Sennett has him doing an impersonation of Fatty Arbuckle here as what's on display doesn't really seem to be his typical comedy. Charley Chase has a brief part of the man after the heart of the father's daughter but he too doesn't get much to do. The film does finally pick up some steam towards the end when we get to the actual chase. As expected, there's a lot of falling off high things and crashing through things, which is a staple of these shorts.