Cut the Cards

A genteel boardinghouse, wallpapered with the ghosts of unpaid rent, quivers beneath the anarchic footfalls of two human hurricanes: Snub Pollard, a scarecrow in moth-eaten tweed whose pockets are black holes devouring coins, and Eddie Boland, a rubber-limbed raconteur whose promises evaporate faster than gin on a radiator. Their landlady, played by Marie Mosquini with the regal fatigue of a deposed duchess, clutches her ledger like a hymnal while every tick of the hallway clock knocks another nickel off the ledger. Ernest Morrison’s bellboy—eyes wide as trolley windows—witnesses escalating skirmishes: exploding soufflés, wallpaper that peels into paper airplanes delivering IOUs, a staircase converted into a slide that deposits evicted furniture into the street. The film’s three reels spiral into a Rube-Goldberg auction where the house itself is the final wager; when the gavel falls, the victors discover the deed has been replaced by a playing card—the two of spades—inked with the legend ‘HOUSE ALWAYS WINS.’ The landlady’s triumphant smirk, half-melted candle of endurance and cunning, lingers as the frame irises out on Snub and Eddie carrying their suitcases into the horizon, still arguing over who owes the cab fare.