Chasing Husbands is just Charley Chase being Charley Chase

If you have about twenty minutes and want to see a man's life fall apart because he tried to be nice, then yeah, Chasing Husbands is worth your time.

Fans of old-school slapstick will probably find it charming, but if you can't stand silent movies where everyone moves like they've had ten cups of coffee, you’ll hate this.

It’s a Charley Chase short, which usually means the plot is just a thin excuse for him to look embarrassed in public.

The whole thing kicks off with a weirdly specific social problem that wouldn't even be a problem today.

Charley is trying to help out a buddy, but he ends up looking like he's the one chasing after someone else's wife.

There is this one shot where he’s trying to hide and his legs are just flailing everywhere. It’s genuinely funny because he looks like a human noodle.

Leo McCarey wrote this, and you can tell because the timing is actually pretty decent for 1928.

It’s not as chaotic as something like Fire Fighters, but it has that same energy where you know a vase is going to break eventually.

I noticed that the interior sets look like they were built in about five minutes.

The wallpaper in the living room scene is so busy it actually hurt my eyes a little bit.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Chasing Husbands (1928) through its definitive frames.

Edgar Kennedy is in this, and he does that thing where he rubs his face in frustration.

Nobody does the slow burn better than him, even when the movie around him is kind of thin.

Speaking of thin, the plot basically evaporates by the halfway mark.

It just becomes a series of people walking into rooms they aren't supposed to be in.

There is a girl in this named Jean Harlow, though she’s super young here and doesn't have much to do yet.

It’s weird seeing her before she became the Jean Harlow, just kind of hovering in the background of a gag.

I forgot to mention the hats. So many hats.

There’s a bit where a hat gets swapped and it’s supposed to be this huge dramatic irony, but I mostly just wondered how they kept them so clean while running around.

The ending feels like they ran out of film or maybe the sun was going down and they just decided to stop.

It doesn't really resolve anything, but I guess in 1928 people didn't care about character arcs as much as they cared about a good fall.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Chasing Husbands (1928) through its definitive frames.

It’s definitely better than some of the stuff from that year, like The Race, which feels way more dated.

Actually, the way Charley Chase uses his physical space is almost modern.

He has this very specific way of tilting his head when he’s lying that feels like a real person trying to get out of trouble.

There’s a moment with a staircase that goes on a bit too long.

I think they were trying to build tension, but I just started looking at the rugs.

The music on the version I watched was a bit loud, too.

Overall, it’s a nice little slice of history that doesn't ask much of you.

You won't remember it by tomorrow, but you’ll smile a couple of times while it's on.

I’ve seen worse ways to spend twenty minutes, like watching Fool Proof again.

Just don't expect a masterpiece. It's just a guy in a suit getting into dumb trouble. 🎥