Summary
Beer Bottle Bend, a sun-scorched outpost where even the cactus swears, slouches under the iron rule of Riley’s Saloon—its pews are barstools, its hymns clink of ice in whiskey, its Sunday best a spattered apron. The sole church, hammered together during a rare lull in the carousing, has been nailed shut so long spiders have evolved their own denominations. Enter the circuit-riding evangelist: once a tumbler under the big top, now armed with a King James in one hand and a menagerie of misfits—Charles Bullephant, the dyspeptic pachyderm; Joe Martin, the orang-outang who quotes Montaigne between bites of cigar; Buster, the four-legged enforcer whose hooves register as seismic events—who turn scripture into spectacle. Riley, sensing tithes draining from his till, unleashes his star attraction, a slinky danseuse with a heart of tungsten, to seduce the sky pilot; the preacher counters with a left hook that re-arranges the geometry of every scar in the joint. Soon the elephant stomps bootleggers into the nave, the ape hauls laggards by their suspenders, the horse drop-kicks rowdies clear into pew three, and within fourteen days the town’s moral compass spins from magnetic north to celestial. On the first re-opened Sabbath the little chapel overflows; the gospel is sliced thick, the beasts stand deacon-still, and rightness itself, dusty but undefeated, plants its flag on the sawdust altar.
Synopsis
The town of Beer Bottle Bend is so tough that the babies chew tobacco. It is run in a high, wide, and handsome manner by the owner of Riley's Saloon. There is a little church in the town that was built in haste many years ago when there happened to be a lull in the festivities; it has been securely boarded up for years. Mr. Riley intended that it should remain so for his Sunday business was booming. A traveling evangelist who learned his profession as a circus performer arrives in the town with Charles Bullephant, a peevish elephant; Joe Martin, a highly-cultured orang-outang; and Buster, a famous trained horse. With help from his friends he sets out to make Beer Bottle Bend a church-going community. Riley realizes that he has strong competition and tries to upset the sky pilot's plans by having his favorite dancing girl vamp him. The preacher, who is somewhat of an athlete, takes the toughest of the bar-beetles down the line for a sound thrashing and begins work with his animals. Charley Bullephant stampedes them into the church. Joe Martin dashes around and drags in delinquents. Buster hauls off and flattens out the unruly with his last two feet. Within a fortnight Beer Bottle Bend enjoys a change of heart. On Sunday morning the little church is filled to the brim. The minister hands out large slices of the gospel, the animals stand by for more service, and right again triumphs over might.
Review Excerpt
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The first time I saw A Prohibition Monkey I was wedged between two reels of nitrate and a projector that smelled of hot pennies; the film flickered like a faulty conscience, and yet its raucous sermon—booze versus beasts versus beatitude—landed with the blunt grace of a hymn hurled from a barroom piano. You don’t merely watch this 1925 oddity, you inhale its splintered sawdust, taste the sulfurous burp of moonshine, feel the pew-shaking thunder of an elephant who has decided that repentance is ..."
