Summary
A flapper bacchanal set in the bootleg borough of Volstead detonates into surreal catastrophe when Lotta Sherry—gilded queen of gin-soaked soirées—summons every reveler with a pulse to commemorate her baby sister’s birthday. Bud Weiser, self-anointed monarch of the Charleston, arrives cock-a-hoop, only to have Smokey Johnny Walker astride his lawn-munching charger crash the gala like a libretto from a demented operetta. One back-slapping faux pas later, Johnny’s molars skitter across the turf and are promptly claimed by Lotta’s bulldog, a creature whose under-bite could curdle moonshine. Mortified, Johnny mumbles through a harelipped retort; Lotta and Bud decamp, leaving him to ferment like discarded mash. Enter Knockout Clancy, pugilist-poet and Johnny’s surrogate fury, hired to steal the belle and detonate decorum. His courtship begins with a haymaker that topples the butler and ends with a domino-effect massacre that would make Lucretius blush. Meanwhile Gaston, Bolshevik pastry-chef of chaos, smuggles dynamite through the scullery, stuffs a comrade’s pipe with it, and—once the poor stooge lights up—watches the explosive scamper off in the jaws of mice who dive headlong into the birthday cake. The resulting conflagration turns frosting into shrapnel, candles into flares, and the soirée into a cautionary fresco on the dangers of party planning during Prohibition.
Synopsis
Lotta Sherry the belle of Volstead, is strong for parties, and is about to celebrate the birthday of her baby sister with a blow-out which bids fair to be a staggering success. Invited by Lotta to attend the forth-coming affair, Bud Weiser is greatly elated. At the moment the guests are assembling they receive a thrill from the unexpected appearance in the offing of Smokey Johnny Walker, on his trusty charger. Hearing the shout, "Milk here!" the charger halts. Johnny detaches himself from the lawn and contrives to worm into the party. Troubles at once begin for Johnny. Slapped on the back by peevish Bud, he coughs his store molars on to the turf, where Lotta's pet bull dog seizes them and makes mean faces at Johnny. Mr. Walker, looking as though he had been aged in the wood, mumbles something with a hair lip accent in reply to Bud's designing, damaging question, and his reply sounding gummy to Lotta, she and Bud leave him flat. At the party, a mysterious gentleman proves to be none other than Knockout Clancy, Johnny Walker's old pal, sent by him to avenge the insult of the straying teeth. An attempt by Clancy to steal Lotta Sherry from Bud Weiser starts things popping, and after a more than 2.75 wallop from Bud. Clancy, starting with the butler, wipes out the entire party. Meanwhile, Gaston, the Bolshevik chief, returning by the kitchen route with enough dynamite and light artillery to get even with everybody, ingeniously tests the explosive by filling his assistant's pipe with a stick of it. Enraged, the latter feeds the rest of the dynamite to the family mice. Enters then the cat, who chases the mice into the birthday cake, and- then things begin to happen.
Review Excerpt
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Prohibition America never partied harder than in The Kick in High Life, a 1922 one-reeler that plays like a champagne bottle shaken by a vandal and uncorked inside a dynamite warehouse. Director-writer Henry Lehrman—vaudeville sadist turned cinema prankster—doesn’t tell a story so much as detonate a piñata of social mores and pick at th..."
