Summary
Charley, a man whose primary occupation appears to be leisure, is abruptly thrust into the harsh realities of the 1920s labor market when his girlfriend’s father unceremoniously ejects him from their home. The mandate is clear: find a job or lose the girl. Desperation leads Charley to an employment agency bulletin board, where he spots a potential lifeline. In a moment of frantic improvisation born of having no writing materials, he commandeers the detachable white collar of a passing pedestrian to jot down the address. This act of petty theft triggers a relentless city-wide pursuit when the irate owner reclaims his property, unaware that he is carrying Charley’s only hope for employment. The chase through the urban labyrinth involves high-speed bus mishaps and fender-bending collisions, ultimately depositing the exhausted pedestrian onto the very porch Charley was exiled from. In a twist of fate that mocks the very concept of meritocracy, the man is revealed to be the family's long-lost son, transforming Charley from a jobless vagrant into a rewarded hero.
Synopsis
Charley gets tossed out of his girlfriend's house by her father with the instruction to go get a job. He spots a position listed on the bulletin board in front of the employment agency but has no paper to write the address on. He stanches the white collar from a passing pedestrian, writes down the address and the irate collar-owner comes back and retrieves his property. Charley follows him all over town trying to read the address. The man falls from a bus, is hit by a fender and thrown up on the porch of Charley's girlfriends house. He turns out to be the long-lost brother and Charley gets the reward for finding him.