Tuesday 3 April 2007

Bromo and Juliet (1926) Leo McCarey

This time round Charley Chase is a young businessman, bright and ready with a good idea and quick to act in a crisis. Unfortunately when the crisis is a production of Romeo and Juliet and he knocks out the stage manager, Madge, the love of his life, persuades him to play Romeo opposite her Juliet. I think I must have blinked after that because all of a sudden this seems to change completely. Suddenly Charley ends up being mistaken for a bootlegger, gets drunk at gunpoint and ends up in no end of misadventures, all the while dressed up to the nines in stage costume.

The funniest bit was the film manipulation to approximate a drunk horse. The rest left me dry, though it didn't leave Charley dry. Walking through a row of sprinklers with sponges concealed inside his hose to approximate muscled legs brings the expected result. Unfortunately that's not a great recommendation for the film, especially coming so soon for me after the triumphant Mighty Like a Moose.

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