This course comique is strictly, concentratedly done for laughs. Very successful too. Guy’s method appears again, and works nicely. She has an idea, or an assignment, and both are developed faithfully, without any distraction or deviation. The dog steals the long rope of sausage, and the store’s proprietor grabs onto the end, and then we go, and escalate. The various bits of business are of a piece, but they’re nicely varied too. They are also, as mentioned, nicely multiplied; by the end the whole nation seems to have become embroiled, with quite comic-apocalyptic results.
Some of these ladies are not, I think, ladies. But some of them are! Again, this woman’s touch is practical and confident and comfortable in all sorts of wonderful ways. The performances are not only energetic, but also expert. Direction too—she really exploits the frame nicely, effectively utilizing ins and outs and cuts and all. Soon she is engaging in some Jean Durand-like destruction. Is this like F.W. Murnau at Fox? Leo McCarey, working with Hal Roach? It’s tough to trace, but there seems to be some benevolent mutual influence going on.
Great conclusion: the various deputized sausage chasers, wearying of the task, follow the lead of the hunter—presumptuous post-aristocrat/bourgeois?—and eat the property that they’ve been trying to restore to its owner. Class, or seemly, pleasingly anarchic self-interest and self-service.