The characters are completely cardboard and there’s nothing at all to the story, which makes the long middle stretch after the vivid introduction in the bar and before the final stuntathon pretty tedious; what remains is the marvel of this short pudgy guy doing all of these good-humoured and outrageous things, which things come in such a rush while all is coming to a head that we get a pretty great resolution, Doug’s foppishness is funny, reminiscent of Scarlett Pimpernel which this, based on a magazine story after all, must be a copy of, the hanky/kiss closing is a nice case of sweet silent simplicity (cf. departing children in Sparrows)