The Way of All Pants (1927) User Reviews

A Charley Chase classic

[silentfilm-2 · 8/10 · 11 February 2001]

Charley Chase has to deliver a pair of pants to a rich man's house. When he gets there, the man's wife has him try them on to see how they look. Unfortunately, the rich man arrives home early, with lots of guests. When Charley hastily tries to put his pants back on, a dog rips off his pants. Charley has to figure out how to get out of the house quickly. When that does not work, he tries to steal other people's pants instead! While only available in fragmentary form, this excerpt is very funny and any fan of silent slapstick will love it.

A nine-minute excerpt from this film is available on THE LOST FILMS OF LAUREL & HARDY #6 DVD. Although it is not listed on the packaging or the DVD menu, it is shown after the last short FORTY FIVE MINUTES FROM HOLLYWOOD. Some might consider this a bonus, others a mistake.

More footage available

[peterm-9 · 8/10 · 4 May 2012]

How tragic that this little gem is incomplete today. Still, there are a little more footage in existence than what is seen in the "Lost Films of Laurel & Hardy vol. 6": Robert Youngson's "The Further Perils of Laurel & Hardy" Show the same footage as Mr. Agee does in Lost Films..., but Youngson's footage continues and actually shows us the rest of the film. Charley gets off the bus and there, by the bus stop, is Edna Marion waiting for him. The detective seen previously passes the two, greets them and continues down the street in riding trousers, much to Edna's and Charley's amusement.

Lacking the major part of reel one, it is great fun studying the film's cutting continuity. The film actually opens with Charley being asked to employ one of the many charming young ladies replying to the ad for the job. Edna is chosen, being described as "Edna - one stenographer in a thousand - She knows the difference between a comma and a period--".

Too mad a piece of this film is missing--what's left is very good

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 9 July 2007]

When this Charley Chase short begins, it's obvious that the context for the film is missing--something that unfortunately happens with some older films, as parts of the film have degraded over the years and are no longer available. Charley must be some sort of clothing store owner or something, but inexplicably the film begins with a woman feeling his legs and inspecting his pants--and NOT in a clothing store. And, when her husband sees it happening he suspects the worst. This scene just doesn't make much sense. However, the film then abruptly cuts to another scene where Charley is telling his girl that he needs to deliver some pants to a rich lady's house. Once there, the rich woman asks him to try them on to see how they look. This doesn't make a lot of sense as the pants are for her husband, but what follows is very funny, as her husband unexpectedly comes home and Charley has his pants stolen by the family dog! Most of the rest of the film consists of him stealing other pants so he can make a getaway without being caught. On a purely superficial level, this is funny stuff but not exactly Chase's best work. Fortunately it does end on a high note.

Does All Right For a One-Gag Film

[Snow Leopard · 28 February 2006]

This short comedy is essentially a one-gag film, but it does all right with the idea, managing to come up with enough variations and uses of the basic idea to make it worth seeing. Charley Chase plays the main character, and though it's one of the less substantial efforts, it does have its moments.

Chase plays a delivery boy who brings a pair of trousers to a wife who ordered them for her husband. When she asks him to model the pants for her, it sets off a chain of slapstick events, all revolving around mismatched and /or missing pants. The idea is very familiar from many other comedies of the era, and so this one doesn't stand out in any way. It does have enough laughs, though, to be worth seeing.

As the previous commentator has also implied, the currently available version seems to be missing some of the original footage, since there are a couple of apparent gaps, most particularly at the beginning. The missing footage may have clarified some of the details, but most likely would not change the nature of the material that much.

The Way of All Pants is a hilarious Charley Chase short even with footage missing

[tavm · 9/10 · 31 July 2007]

Just discovered this hilarious, if uneven due to some missing scenes, Charley Chase short on YouTube. Basically, Charley is a clothes delivery man who brings pants to a mansion. The lady of the house asks him to try it on. He does in front of a window just as the man that the pants was for passes by in his chauffeured limousine and sees him taking it off making the chauffeured man gasp in horror and get a detective to try to get Chase out quietly. The man's wife herself finds out and tells Charley to get out. Just as Mr. Chase is getting his own pants on, however, a dog grabs it from him leading to a way funny mix up on clothes between them, the detective, and a butler. Highly recommended Hal Roach comedy short for fans of silent comedy especially those of Charley Chase.

One of Chase's spoofs on popular hit films.

[theowinthrop · 11 February 2008]

I saw this on "You Tube" this evening, and found it amusing.

In the 19th Century one of the last major Victorian writers of note was Samuel Butler. His is a strange reputation: He actually wrote three fictional works (though they are still read) called EREWHON, EREWHON REVISITED, and THE WAY OF ALL FLESH. He also wrote translations of Homer's ILIAD and ODYSSEY (prose translations, not poetic translations), and was involved in several major literary and scientific disputes regarding Darwin's theory of Evolution and Homer's actual personality. For a man with a relatively small output Butler left still impressive literary footprints. Many college courses include THE WAY OF ALL FLESH among classic Victorian novels.

The novel actually deals with Butler's youth, and his disillusion with the Anglican Church and organized religion due to his feelings his father (a clergyman) was a hypocrite. As far as I know the novel has not been turned into a movie following the actual story. Yet two films were made (in 1927 and 1942) with the same title. This by itself is unimportant, but the first one starred Emil Jannings and was one of the two films cited by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science as the performances that earned Jannings the first Oscar for best actor. The other film, THE LAST COMMAND (directed by Josef Von Sternberg) still exists and shows how wonderful an actor Jannings was (although he proved to be too much a political opportunist for his reputations' sake). But except for a very brief sequence most of the 1927 THE WAY OF ALL FLESH has vanished. We can tell what it was like from written descriptions and from the 1942 version starring Akim Tamiroff, but we probably would find the 1927 version well worth having if it was still in existence.

The film dealt with how a man is twisted up by circumstances into pretending he was dead in order for his family to retain their belief in his honesty and decency. As a result he is unable to grow old watching his family develop and become happy adults.

Now, the same year that Victor Fleming directed Jannings in THE WAY OF ALL FLESH, Charlie Chase made this comedy which (for all I know) has no relationship to the film with Jannings. Chase (like Stan Laurel) titled films after current movie favorites. He did one called THE LIGHTER THAT FAILED. So instead of THE WAY OF ALL FLESH we have THE WAY OF ALL PANTS.

The story is simple (even though the film appears to be missing some scenes today). Chase is a tailor or haberdasher who is supposed to get a pair of pants made as a gift for a jealous husband from his wife. The husband already has his suspicions about Chase (he sees him in his business office apparently fooling around with the wife - actually she is using Chase to measure her husband's size and contours for the pants. He shows up at the mansion of the man and his wife, and the wife demands that Chase try on the pants so she can see how they look. Unfortunately the husband is arriving with guests (important ones) for a dinner party - and the husband sees Chase at his bedroom window undressing. Panicking, the husband asks a local busybody (who fancies himself a detective) to get Chase out of the mansion without any scenes.

Of course the reverse happens. Chase has trouble with a small dog who steals his pants, and then Chase rips the man's pants and is walking half uncovered (except for his underwear) and half with his right leg in a trouser leg. He tries to recover the pants only to find the idiot detective holding them, and then ripping them accidentally. Soon the detective, Chase, and a butler are running around without pants (Hal Roach may have made a mental note of all this - Stan Laurel too, because soon a Laurel & Hardy short would involve pants being torn off various men in a street brawl). The dinner is affected by these shenanigans, as well as one of the male guests apparently playing "footsie" with a female guest under the table (it is Charlie accidentally stroking the woman's ankle). The woman also adds to the confusion when she pours some wine onto Charle, and he momentarily thinks the family dog peed on him.

It does become a one-joke situation comedy, but the variations on that joke work out well. And the doomed dinner party in THE WAY OF ALL PANTS can take it's place next to the doomed party in Laurel & Hardy's FROM SOUP TO NUTS made about the same time.