Summary
Beneath a vernal haze of apple-blossom and bootleg gin, Miss May Time—part flapper, part somnambulant cipher—drifts through a day that keeps folding in on itself like a paper fan soaked in absinthe. What begins as a coy courtship on a manicured lawn metastasizes into sartorial sabotage when fleas desert her pom-pom poodle and storm her lingerie; she ducks behind a hedge, peels away silk like a snake shrugging skin, and re-emerges trousered in a stranger’s tweeds. Identity, already gossamer, snaps: May in menswear becomes a magnet for a Puck-ish interloper who smells of lilac and turpentine, trailing practical jokes that escalate from whoopee-cushion whimsy to rooftop apocalypse. Somewhere downstage, the family’s smirking bootlegger pastes the hapless poodle behind a billboard houri; every shimmy of the dog telegraphs scandal through the dancer’s cardboard hips, turning Main Street into a burlesque of twitching Arabian clichés. The dream logic—spring as both rom-com and slow-burning fuse—culminates in a bathhouse built of mirrors and moonshine: glass water, mattress bonfires, extinguishers brimming with ersatz whiskey that whoosh into flame-throwers. Balconies tilt, ladders seesaw over the void, and the final conflagration tastes like burnt cinnamon and Prohibition regret—until the whole phantasmagoria implodes into a bedroom kiss, leaving only the lingering scent of singed rosewater and the suspicion that waking life might be the bawdier dream.
Synopsis
A beautiful day in Spring, and Miss May Time is beholding strange sights. Along comes gay young Billie Paste, son of a wealthy bill poster, and much stuck on himself, to meet his love, May Time. While. they are talking, an emigration of fleas from May's pet poodle, "Shimmie," causes a hasty retirement into the shrubbery, and a hurried disrobing by May, to rid herself of the offenders. And then- horrors. May turns to find her clothes gone, and in their stead the raiment of a man. Thus clothed she experiences many troubles and annoyances at the hands of a Mysterious Stranger, who is imbued with the spirit of Spring - until he is dragged into the lake in the nick of time by an obliging swan. Meanwhile, the wealthy bill poster has treacherously pasted Shimmie behind the Oriental dancer's poster, with the result that La Belle Fatima executed some remarkably Oriental movements on the billboard, shocking the passing populace, whenever "Shimmie" moves about. And then, in the midst of her troubles, Miss May Time wakes up - it was all a dream and Billy Paste proves to be none other than Montague Moon, May's own, wide awake sweetheart, while the wealthy bill poster turns out to be the hall boy in May's home, who keeps the guests in good spirits, with a hose full of hootch. Unable to use the family bath tub, because one of the lady house guests had taken up a permanent abode therein, much to the joy of the hall boy, who seems to have entree every where, May finally appeals to dear Montague, and he builds her a Russian bath on the floor above. Thither stealthily creeps the hall boy and the Mysterious Stranger, bent on beating May to it with a cooling plunge. But curses, the first dive proves the water to be glass. Troubles are but beginning for the hall boy and his mysterious friend. A quiet sleep is rudely interrupted by a nice warm fire in the middle of the bed, which greatly disturbs their dreams. In a panic, all rush for the fire extinguishers, and then the evils of bootlegging become apparent. The extinguishers are filled with inflammable hootch. Up to the roof they dash for help, but alas. The hall boy finds him self being borne swiftly to the edge of the roof on the stream of a fire hose, while the unlucky Stranger has mounted a ladder which is toppling precariously over into the canyon of the street. With the building burning around them, all appears to be lost.
Review Excerpt
"
Imagine, if you can stand the vertigo, a world where spring is not a season but a prankish deity with too much time on its hands and a bottomless hip-flask of bath-tub gin. Wet and Warmer—that curious, half-forgotten 1919 one-reeler newly resurrected by an Italian archive—slaps that deity across the face, steals its daisy chain, and runs giggling straight into the hedonic meat-grinder of the Jazz Age. The resulting film feels like a Max Ernst collage performed by Keystone firemen after three da..."
