Rat's Knuckles, The (1925)
** (out of 4)
Jimmy Jump invents a humane mouse trap that he plans on selling so that he and the girlfriend (Martha Sleeper) can become millionaires. This is a pretty disappointing entry in the Charley Chase series for a number of reasons. The biggest one is that the screenplay is incredibly weak without very many jokes. It's not that there are a lot of jokes that simply don't work. It's worse because there just aren't many jokes that are even attempted for. The first portion of the film deals with a fantasy sequence with Chase and Sleeper acting rich and posing for a variety of pictures. There are a couple marginal laughs to be had with this sequence as they're obviously spoofing rich folks who do good things just for the cameras. After this things get too weak as we see Chase trying to sell this trap, which eventually leads to us getting to see how the thing actually works. At 9-minutes the thing moves along well enough but just don't expect very many laughs. Certainly one of the weaker entries in the series.