Summary
No Parking unfolds as a whimsical yet incisive satire on domestic life and bureaucratic absurdity, filtered through the lens of a nomadic family’s misadventures in 1920s California. Jane Hart’s portrayal of a beleaguered mother oscillates between maternal fortitude and exasperation as her family—comprising a husband, infant, and a canine companion—traverses a surreal landscape where infrastructure and logic conspire against them. The narrative pivots on a series of escalating farcical set pieces: a flivver-stuck family purchasing a portable bungalow, only to discover it’s been erected atop their child; a real-estate agent’s belated correction sending them on a chaotic house-moving odyssey; and a final bureaucratic hurdle that demands permits for a structure they’ve already dismantled three times. Amidst this chaos, the infant’s accidental discovery of an oil well—via mud pies—injects a darkly humorous subtext, suggesting that even innocence cannot escape the commodification of land and resources. Frank Roland Conklin’s script leans into visual gags with clockwork precision, using slapstick to critique societal norms and the futility of order in a world governed by caprice. The film’s charm lies in its deadpan tone, juxtaposing mundane struggles with fantastical absurdity, while the dog Laddie emerges as an unwitting co-protagonist, embodying loyalty in a landscape of disarray.
Synopsis
Husband, wife, baby, and dog arrive in California in a flivver. As they have great difficulty in finding a hotel that will allow babies and dogs, they buy a lot and a portable bungalow. After putting it up they discover that they built the house over the baby, so they tear it all down and set it up again. But just before they move in, a real-estate agent arrives to tell them that they built upon the wrong lot. They put the house on wheels and tow it through the town, but the rope breaks and the house runs wild. After they place it on the proper lot, the inspectors inform them that a building permit is required, and once more the house is knocked down. But during this time the baby was making mud pies out of what turned to be an oil well.
