What Happened to Jones

A tipsy valise of contraband gin, a midnight whistle-stop, and one spectacular case of mistaken identity set the comic dominoes tumbling in this effervescent 1920 caper. Jimmie Jones—equal parts hail-fellow and accidental anarchist—boards the rattler toting liquid solace for his parched pal Bobbie Brown, only to find his hooch heisted somewhere between clattering rails and small-town shadows. While haggling for emergency refreshment with a furtive bootlegger, our hero collides with a sheriff whose badge gleams like a death warrant. Panic sparks improvisation: Jones drapes himself in the sanctimonious tweed of visiting temperance crusader Anthony Goodley, sermonizing against demon tobacco while the real McCoy languishes in blissful ignorance. The masquerade combusts when rowdy locals, smelling hypocrisy, storm the lecture hall, pitchfork wit poised. Into this crucible barges Goodley’s fiancée—an antique-spinster termagant whose fluttering eyelids recalibrate toward the impostor like a compass gone berserk. Through trapdoors, haylofts, and a baptismal horse trough, Jones pirouettes, hand-in-hand with true love Cissy Smith, as moonlight and mayhem conspire to crown the fugitive couple while the genuine reformer inherits the whirlwind.