Don't Play Hookey

In 'Don't Play Hookey', the screen serves as a canvas for Sidney Smith’s uniquely chaotic brand of urban kineticism. The narrative bifurcates into two distinct movements of Vaudevillian absurdity. Initially, we are introduced to Sid, an itinerant street photographer whose technological 'wizardry' is a farce of instant gratification; he offers his subjects immediate portraits that bear a distressing lack of resemblance to their human counterparts. This sequence functions as a scathing, albeit hilarious, critique of the burgeoning era of mechanical reproduction. The second movement shifts the stakes from the aesthetic to the pedagogical. Sid is recruited by a school teacher, played with a luminous sincerity by Duane Thompson, to navigate the labyrinthine task of reclaiming a cohort of truant scholars. What follows is a frantic, expertly choreographed pursuit through the architectural eccentricities of the 1920s, as Sid attempts to reconcile his own bumbling nature with the rigid demands of the educational system. The film is less a linear story and more a rhythmic exploration of failure, identity, and the exuberant anarchy of the silent era.