Bad Boy

Actor/director/screenwriter Charley Chase (1893-1940) is often considered an unsung hero in the field of movie comedy. Baltimore-born Chase achieved his greatest popularity as a comic in a series of two-reel comedies of the mid-1920s in which he most often played a dapper but shy man-about-town or a mild-mannered, henpecked husband. Before that, Chase had paid his dues in vaudeville and as a supporting actor in Mack Sennett comedies, including several starring Charlie Chaplin. In 1915 Chase began directing some of his own comedies as well of those of Fatty Arbuckle and Ford Sterling. Under his real name, Charles Parrott, he directed some of the most inventive comedies from the Hal Roach Studios with such featured comics as Snub Pollard. Working in collaboration with director Leo McCarey in the mid-1920s, Chase created what are considered some of the cleverest two-reel comedies of their day: In Bad Boy (1925), he's a shy guy who ends up performing a parody of an Isadora Duncan dance. Chase, who mentored both Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, plays Hardy's brother-in-law in Isn't Life Terrible? (1925), where their misadventures include a voyage on an ocean liner headed for the scrapyard. In The Uneasy Three (1925), three would-be crooks try to crash a society party. Mama Behave (1926) is a two-reeler comedy directed by Leo McCarey, who helmed three of the films in this program (excluding Isn't Life Terrible), and would later distinquish himself as one of the top comedy directors of the thirties with such hits as Duck Soup (1933) with The Marx Brothers, Ruggles of Red Gap (1935) and The Awful Truth (1937). Chase, who had a pleasant voice in both speech and song, made the transition to talkies, playing supporting roles in features while continuing to act in and direct comedy shorts. He died prematurely at age 46 of a heart attack; alcoholism was said to be a contributing factor. by Roger Fristoe