April Fool

This is one of my least favorite Charley Chase shorts. The setting is a newspaper office, and a whole cast of characters is introduced at the beginning of the film. But actually, all the brain power I spent trying to learn who the characters were was completely unnecessary--the setting and characters don't matter at all. There's no real plot here--it's April Fool's Day, and everybody tries to pull a prank on everybody else. Too many of the pranks are predictable: dribble glass, rubber hammer, ink on a chair, etc. The only real laugh I got out of this was towards the end, after the editor's wife calls to say that her house is on fire, but of course nobody believes her. The ending is predictable, although still cute. I also was disappointed in the rather dull way that the movie is filmed. I'm used to Charley Chase films having a snappier editing style and camera work that really takes advantage of the set locations. This one just didn't live up to Charley's other work.