Summary
Johnny Hines’s rubber-limbed urbanite Torchy, a whirligig of flapping shoelaces and sardonic eyebrows, is dispatched to a cedar-scented manor where the cocktails fizz louder than the jazz on the gramophone; masquerading as a house painter who can’t tell cerulean from cornflower, he slips inside a weekend soirée already curdling with larceny. Two faux-mystics—she draped in dime-store bangles, he sporting a turban the color of bruised plums—circulate the guests, palming diamonds between tarot spreads. When the host announces a moonlit costume fête, the grifters pivot from parlor tricks to grand heist, slipping into smocks identical to Torchy’s. A misdelivered satchel of emeralds lands in our hero’s paint pot; chaos pirouettes. Constable Culpepper, equal parts bloodhound and blunderbuss, pins the crime on the nearest brush-wielding body. Torchy, now human scarecrow, stuffs himself with straw, outwits foxhounds, somersaults across hayrick moonlight, and finally trusses the swindlers with their own crystal-ball cable. Jewels restored, reputation burnished, he saunters back to the city, pockets rattling with lacquered laughter.
Synopsis
Torchy is sent by his employer to a country home where trouble is brewing and a house party is in progress. He disguises himself as a painter and soon learns that a man and woman posing as fortune tellers are really crooks. It is planned to make a big haul during a masquerade. The man also puts on a painter's outfit, and the girl steals the jewels which she erroneously passes to Torchy, who restores them to their rightful owners and starts out to capture the thieves who have decamped. He is mistaken by the country constable but manages to outwit him by hiding in a scarecrow, in which he pulls off some laughable business, and finally captures the thieves.
Director
Cast
