His Unlucky Night

Billy Bevan travels in women's lingerie.... that is, he is a traveling salesman who sells the stuff. When Carole Lombard and he set Vernon Dent up for a night on the town, Billy's wife finds out and the usual series of hotel detectives and slamming doors ensue.

It's pretty much a standard two-reeler, full of pretty girls and innuendo and some of the gags are very good -- I am much taken by Andy Clyde's checker game with a cat. Mack Sennett was busy getting his new studio, intended for the sound era, ready for work and his studio could turn out a movie like this readily enough.

Still, there's something mechanical about the whole operation by this time. Ten years after Harold Lloyd had invented the Glass character and while Laurel and Hardy were starting out on their long series of comedies about two nitwits who were friends, Mack Sennett was still turning out comedies about stock characters. They're certainly funny, but after a while I long for something more: a human being I can recognize. Sennett tried that in the Smith Family series, but you never really see the character here; you just see Billy's mustache.

Well, I laughed. That's what these movies are supposed to make you do. Still, more would be nice.