A Close Shave

Night itself becomes a conspirator when Percie and Ferdie, two vagabond jesters of the waking world, slither through the city’s arteries toward a barbershop whose frosted pole whispers promises of honest wages. They arrive so early that even the moon has clocked out, curling up like a discarded shaving on the stoop where they dream a Technicolor hallucination: powdered wigs morph into military plumage, pomades into medals, and the lowly chair swivels into a throne at Miss Millionbucks’ masquerade. In this dream they are impostors crowned by candlelight, sabers rattling like loose razors until the real officers arrive and the chandeliers become firing squads. Dawn yanks them back; the coveted jobs have vanished with the dew, leaving only the echo of clippers and the metallic scent of phantom gunpowder. The film, a two-reel prism, refracts proletarian yearning through slapstone lunacy, letting every snip of the shears echo like a guillotine on ambition.