Jitters the Butler: A total fever dream of a short

Is it worth your time?

Look, if you’re into early slapstick that moves at a hundred miles an hour, you’ll probably have a blast. If you need a coherent story that follows basic logic, skip this and go watch Anna Christie instead. It’s loud, it’s messy, and it’s basically just people falling over each other for twenty minutes. 🙄

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

The whole thing starts with these two street cleaners getting canned for playing with fireworks. Honestly, who thought that was a good idea on the job? But then, in a twist that makes zero sense, they end up recovering from a car crash at their boss's house. The wife is the one who brings them in, and the husband looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm the entire time.

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

Wait, why are they here again?

The logic is paper-thin, but who cares? There’s this one scene where they try to be fancy butlers, and the level of clumsiness is frankly impressive. It reminded me a bit of the frantic energy in Seven Chances, just way more claustrophobic.

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

James Finlayson is in this, and you just know that whenever he shows up, someone is getting hit with a tray or falling down a flight of stairs. His face is like a living cartoon. He does this thing with his eyes—the squinty, frustrated look—that honestly never gets old. 😆

The pacing is all over the place. One minute we’re in the street, the next we’re in this high-society dining room, and the transition feels like it was edited with a pair of rusty garden shears. It works, though. It keeps you on your toes because you literally don’t know who is going to trip next.

• The firecracker bit at the start is way louder than I expected.
• The wife's patience is a saint-level superpower.
• I’m pretty sure someone broke a vase, but nobody acknowledged it.

It’s not trying to be a deep dive into the human condition. It’s a frenzy. If you want to see people acting like complete maniacs in tuxedos, this is your movie. Just don't ask me to explain how they managed to get invited back into the house after the fireworks debacle. Maybe the wife just really loves chaos? Who knows.

Anyway, it’s a weird little relic. I kind of loved how committed they were to the bit. A bit like the tone in Traps and Tangles, it’s just pure, unfiltered silliness. Sometimes you just need to watch a butler lose his mind for a bit. 🎩✨