What Price Goofy? (1925) User Reviews

a little contrived but great fun

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 20 March 2006]

Charlie Chase was a very prolific comedian of the early days of cinema--having appeared in over 250 shorts and full-length movies. However, today few would recognize his name.

This film features Charlie as a rich guy with an incredibly jealous wife (though looking at him, I just couldn't see what the fuss was all about--he was definitely NOT a "lady killer"). Well, through a series of odd coincidences, it appears that Charlie is cheating and he spends most of the film doing everything he can to convince his wife of his fidelity. This is pretty funny--especially when the butler and a stray dog decide to help him. Although there is no way everything could have worked out like it did at the end of the film, if you turn off your brain and just watch you'll laugh and have a great time.

Strange title, Great picture. (SPOILERS AHEAD)

[gmoore44 · 9/10 · 20 March 2006]

Turner Classic Movies presented a Sunday night 6 movie retrospective of Charley Chase. Having never heard of him, I sat down to watch. He is definitely a comedian whose work remains undiscovered by many, which is a great pity. Considering the movie, this may be one of his best. It tackled many themes, and was somewhat daring for it's time. With a jealous wife, a gorgeous female professor, and a piece of lingerie that Charley claims is owned by the man who is pretending to be the professor, hinting at cross dressing in the 1920, daring indeed! Also VERY funny, and well worth seeing! If you are not acquainted with his body of work, this is a great film to start off with!

Worth paying a price for

[hte-trasme · 9/10 · 12 May 2010]

A previous IMDb commentator noted that though this film was very funny (agreed!) the title was a little strange. I believe it's one of those times Hal Roach put out a named not after what happens in it but as a parody of something else -- in this case there was a feature that came out the same year called "What Price Beauty?" In any case this is a hilarious two-reeler, worthy of standing with the best entries in the great Charley Chase series.

The old maxim is to be wary of sharing the screen with children or animals, but Charley Chase was wise enough to know that if he used a cute dog in a funny way, it would only make his film -- and him -- the funnier. Here "Buddy" the dog begins Charley's predicament by being rescued, then precipitates a progressively more hilarious running gag (carefully set up beforehand) by continuing to play hide-and-seek with his master when he very much wants that embarrassing piece of ladies' underwear hidden.

The comedy in this one comes not so much from Charley's mounting embarrassment, as it often does, but instead from the gradually increasing dramatic tension around whether an embarrassing situation will explode around him -- specifically being caused by a clingy little dog and an inconveniently female surprise houseguest to look like a philanderer to his suspicious wife.

The balance and escalation of the tension with laughs and coincidences is a joy to behold, and the moment when Charley decides to use the burgler he catches breaking in to impersonate a male professor is inspired.

The prolific, expressive-faced character actor Lucien Littlefield has a great supporting turn here as Charley's loyal and tricky butler, and Katherine Grant is as always a great and hilariously dangerous leading lady. Charley Chase's series of two-reel comedies kept up an astonishing level of consistent originality and quality; this one again had me laughing out loud numerous times.

expertly performed farce

[kekseksa · 18 August 2016]

Conditioning often makes appreciation of silent films difficult. For years, after the calamity of the advent of sound (calamity that is for the reputation and recognition of silent films), audiences, especially in the US, have been conditioned into associating silent film very largely with slapstick comedy (a genre particularly favoured in the US). Consequently there is a tendency to dismiss out of hand any film that doesn't have people falling over and throwing bricks at each other.

But there were some less crude comedy is made and this Charley Chase film is a good example. It is an extremely well-constructed comedy that relies not simply on gags but on the careful build-up of a comic situation. It is greatly helped by fine performances from all, including notably Littlefield who is impeccable as the butler and Buddy the dog (the hide-and-seek game which leads to the dog embarrassing his adopted master is a first-rate idea). An accumulation of misunderstandings gradually become more and more absurd but very neatly, very expertly and very wittily resolved at the end of the film. In brief, it is a well-played farce à la française that will appeal to anyone with a more developed sense of humour and makes a refreshing change from the general run of comedies at this period.

The stile incidentally is taken from the hit play, What Price Glory? by Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings which began its long Broadway run in 1924. The Play was filmed by Raoul Walsh in 1926 (and by John Ford in 1962) but there connection between the plot of the play and this film. The dog's name in the film (Rin Chin Chin) is of course based on Rin Tin Tin (the first of that name) who had begun his phenomenal film career in 1922.

Three Chase

[Michael_Elliott · 11 March 2008]

What Price Goofy (1925)

** (out of 4)

Boring Charley Chase film has him bringing a dog home, which makes his wife think he's having an affair. There really isn't a single laugh here, although the various dog tricks are very cute and keep things moving nicely.

Uneasy Three, The (1925)

*** (out of 4)

Comic spoof of Lon Chaney's The Unholy Three has Charley Chase playing the leader of a gang who plans on stealing some priceless jewels. There are plenty of good laughs scattered throughout this short but most of them come from a kid who accidentally gets kidnapped in all the confusion.

Bad Boy (1925)

** (out of 4)

A man (Charley Chase) will do whatever it takes to please his parents even though they disagree about everything. The early scenes with Chase trying to do construction work are funny but things fizzle out a bit afterwards.