His Vacation Review: A messy, twitchy vintage short that's mostly fun

Honestly, only watch His Vacation if you have 20 minutes to kill and a weird obsession with dusty old silent-era comedies. If you hate screaming kids and slapstick where nothing really makes sense, please skip this immediately. 🚫

It is basically about a guy who just wants to sit down and relax, but his family makes that completely impossible.

The plot is paper-thin, even for a short. But Monte Collins has this amazing, twitchy energy that kept me watching anyway.

He plays the dad, and his face honestly looks like it is made of rubber. He does this weird thing with his mustache when he gets angry that made me laugh out loud.

The Good, the Bad, and the Twitchy

The kid in this, played by Mickey Rentschler, is absolute chaos. He does this one run-and-slide move across the porch that looked like it actually hurt.

I had to rewind that part twice because the camera wobbles right after. I swear the cameraman was laughing, or maybe he just bumped the tripod. 🤷‍♂️

It reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in One of the Family, though that one had a bit more of a real story. This one is just pure stress.

Then you have Martha Mattox. She plays the stern lady role so well, she doesn't even need dialogue to terrify you.

Her glare could literally halt a train. There is a moment where she just stares at a broken vase, and you can feel the temperature in the room drop.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of His Vacation (1932) through its definitive frames.

Honestly, her face is much funnier than the actual physical stunts. The physical comedy gets a bit repetitive after a while.

Like, how many times can a man trip over a garden hose? Hal Yates (the writer) seems to think the answer is at least five times.

It gets a bit exhausting. But then Gloria Shea shows up and she is just lovely, acting like she is in a completely different, much more normal movie.

Her performance is like a calm little island in a sea of screaming.

Some of the gags feel incredibly old. Like, stuff you would see in Tillie Wakes Up, but with less charm.

Things I Noticed on Second Watch

• The dog clearly wanting to escape the set. You can see a hand off-screen try to push it back in! 🐕
• A camera shake that was definitely not intentional.
• Martha Mattox's terrifying doom-glare.

I love those little mistakes. It makes the whole thing feel so alive, unlike the polished, boring stuff we get now.

Is it a masterpiece? Absolutely not.

But if you want to see some vintage, messy family drama, it is worth a quick look.

Just do not expect to remember much of it tomorrow.