Summary
Picture a drab plumbing van rattling down a rain-slick boulevard, its chrome gleam dulled by the soot of tenement chimneys; inside sit William Wilson—eyes flickering with dollar-sign hallucinations—and Joe Blynn, whose pulse beats to the steady drip of a loyal wrench. One coppery afternoon, while coaxing a recalcitrant pipe inside the marbled colossus of the Hoban mansion, Will’s discontent ricochets off gilded wainscoting loud enough for the tuxedoed Midas above-stairs to overhear. In a heartbeat, the millionaire converts their overalls into tuxedos, their toolbox into a balance sheet, and their girlfriends into memory. The newborn Scandia Copper Company rises on nothing but paper glistening like fool’s gold, flanked by sirens in silk who sip bootleg champagne while whispering SEC-proof lullabies. Fortunes balloon, cufflinks widen, and the plumbers-turned-phantom-magnates parade through ticker-tape hallucinations—until Secret Service agents burst the bubble, handcuffing illusion to reality in a single flash-bang. Bloodied, indicted, and cast from penthouse to prison ward, they ricochet through hospital corridors where antiseptic reality strips away gilt hallucinations, leaving only the echo of dripping pipes and faithful hearts they once betrayed.
Synopsis
Plumbers William Wilson and Joe Blynn are partners who share quite different ambitions. Will aspires to wealth and glamour while Joe is content with their plumbing business. While fixing a leak in the Hoban mansion, millionaire Hoban overhears Will's grumbling and offers the pair a chance to participate in a business deal. Will jumps at the offer, and soon they are arrayed in fine clothing and appointed to the posts of president and secretary of the Scandia Copper Company, while two attractive vamps make them forget their own sweethearts. All goes well until a raid by the United States Secret Service discloses that the Scandia Corporation is a bogus company that has been defrauding people through the mails. The erstwhile plumbers are arrested and injured in a fight while escaping, and then land in the hospital. Finally matters are cleared up; they are reunited with their sweethearts and promise to forget high society.
Review Excerpt
"
The first time I encountered Once a Plumber, a 35 mm print sputtered through a rattling projector at a regional archive, its title card flickering like a dying Edison bulb. Ninety-odd years after its premiere, Lee Moran’s moon-face still radiates that indestructible hunger that defines American comedy—the hunger to shimmy up the social drainpipe no matter how corroded the rungs.
Director C.B. Hoadley, better known for two-reel farces, here stretches to six reels without slackening the wrench-t..."
