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Cult Review
Senior Film Conservator
Alright, so you’re wondering about Leave It to Lester. Look, if you’re someone who loves diving deep into the weird, wild early days of talking pictures, then yeah, this might be worth a look. Especially if you appreciate a good, old-fashioned farce where everything goes wrong. But if you're after something with, you know, a modern pace or humor that’s aged gracefully, you'll probably hate it. It’s a definite niche pick, I’d say. 🎞️
The whole setup is pretty simple: Lester Aloysius Sebastian Brown (played by Lester Allen himself) talks his newly married pals, Jerry and Marian Townsend (Hal Thompson and Evelyn Hoey), into letting him crash their European honeymoon. He fancies himself a guide. You can pretty much guess how well that goes.
Right off the bat, Paris gives us a taste. The three of them hit a nightclub. And because this is 1930s comedy, of course, Lester manages to get himself — and his innocent friends — mistaken for someone else. Two husbands, very upset, rough him up good. The confusion there, it just kind of spirals. It feels like the director just let the cameras roll, hoping for some genuine chaos. Which, you know, sometimes works. Other times, it just looks like people flailing.
Then they’re off to Switzerland. There’s a forced landing, out of nowhere, near some kind of wedding festival. This particular bit felt a little tacked on, honestly. Like, ‘how do we get them into another awkward situation?’ And boom, Swiss wedding. You can almost feel the plot gears grinding into place. The costumes at the festival were pretty elaborate though. ✨
But the real *gem*, if you want to call it that, is Cairo. Jerry gets abducted. And Marian, his new wife, has to go find him. Where? In a harem, naturally. This whole sequence is… something. It’s very much a product of its time, full of all the dated tropes you’d expect. Marian, bless her heart, navigating a bustling market and then this very, very staged harem scene. It’s hard to watch without wincing a little, not gonna lie. It just goes on and on, with everyone running around in circles.
Lester Allen, as Lester, is definitely the star here. He’s got this nervous, eager energy that drives the whole thing. He’s always trying to help, always making things worse. You can see why he was a popular vaudeville guy. He carries a lot of the movie, even when the gags are stretching thin. Hal Thompson and Evelyn Hoey, as the poor newlyweds, mostly just react to Lester's antics. They have this exasperated look for about 90% of the film, which is pretty understandable.
The pacing is pretty wild. Some scenes fly by, others feel like they linger about 15 seconds too long, waiting for a laugh that might not come. The transitions between locations, like from Switzerland to Cairo, are just… poof, you're there. No real sense of journey. It’s very episodic, almost like a collection of short skits strung together.
I found myself wondering, at one point, about the backgrounds in the Paris nightclub. They looked so painted. Like, *really* painted. Almost like a stage play rather than a movie set. It just added to the whole quirky vibe, I guess. You’re never quite sure if you’re meant to take any of it seriously.
By the time they get back to New York, you're just kind of relieved for everyone involved. It’s not a movie that leaves you with any deep thoughts. But it’s a curious piece of cinematic history, for sure. A snapshot of what passed for big laughs in a very different era.
IMDb —
1919
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