Innocent Husbands (1925) User Reviews (7)

Comedy gold, thanks to Mr. Chase

[wmorrow59 · 8/10 · 23 October 2004]

Perhaps you've heard about the great-but-neglected comedian Charley Chase, and perhaps you wonder what was so great about him. If so, this nicely polished gem from Chase's silent era heyday would be a good place to start an acquaintance. Judged on a bare plot outline Innocent Husbands might sound like a run-of-the-mill marital farce, the sort of two-reeler comics like Leon Errol cranked out by the dozen, but the difference lies in the execution. Charley Chase was a charming, agile performer with a highly expressive face and a lanky build, rather like a cross between Dick Van Dyke and John Cleese. Chase also possessed a gift for physical comedy and a fertile imagination for gags, which he demonstrated not only in his own movies but also when he directed films featuring his peers.

When I speak of "physical comedy," by the way, I don't mean the sort of primitive butt-kicking slapstick found in the early Mack Sennett comedies. Like many of his contemporaries Charley Chase's film-making apprenticeship took place at the Keystone Studio during World War I, but by the '20s he'd refined his skills to the point where his work was comparatively sophisticated, with an occasional touch of the risqué. One example from this film: when Charley is sent to an apartment building to fetch a young lady to bring to a party. He is told to stand in front of her building and whistle three times; this will be her signal to throw down her room key. Charley dutifully stands before the building and whistles three times-- and is pelted with dozens of keys! Maybe that isn't your idea of "sophisticated," but it's miles ahead of a Keystone food fight. Next we have a funny scene where Charley actually has to fend off the hot-to-trot young lady in the back of a cab. He's not merely an innocent husband, but one who has to FIGHT to uphold his virtue!

This is the sort of farce in which an obsessively jealous wife tries to catch her husband cheating. He's innocent, like the title says, and yet he eventually winds up-- innocently, of course --with an unconscious floozy in his bedroom, and must scramble to conceal her presence. Again, what makes it work is the freshness Chase brings to this admittedly familiar material. A highlight comes early on, when Melvin (Charley's character) tells his wife Mame that he's become so tired of her suspicions he's going to end it all. He stomps into the next room, finds a revolver, fires it into the floor and falls, in a histrionic manner. No response. So, naturally, he does it again. Still nothing. Now Mame opens the door to watch as Melvin performs this ridiculous act a third time. Flat on the floor Melvin looks up, realizes Mame is watching, and quickly resumes playing dead. This may not sound so funny in the telling, and God knows plenty of lesser comics have performed similar routines to little effect, but trust me, when Charley Chase does this, it's funny. Innocent Husbands is a comic treat that deserves to be better known, and so does its star performer.

Liked The Music As Much As The Humor

[ccthemovieman-1 · 7/10 · 4 April 2007]

Charley Chase plays "Melvin," a poor sap whose wife obsessively-jealous wife "Mame." The latter was played by a very pretty and sexy Katherine Grant, who makes me think this film should be the other way around with him jealous of her. Grant was a beauty pageant winner, by the way, but stopped making films two years after this.

Anyway, Mame tries to catch him in the act of cheating. However, Melvin is an upright guy who is not cheating nor even thinking about it. Even when some horny older woman is trying to get him to fool around in the backseat of a cab, he wants no part of it.

There are a few clever and funny sight gags in here, things I haven't seen in the Chaplin, Lloyd or Keaton films. Charley is a little different in his own way. One reviewer here said he looked like a cross between Dick Van Dyke and John Cleese, and I thought was pretty accurate. The last few minutes of this movie, as in many silent comedies, is hilarious.

One thing I really liked in this movie was the score. It was very snappy '20s music, mostly upbeat and a lot of fun to hear. Frankly, many of the scores from this era don't grab my attention....but this one did.

A cute Charley Chase film

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 1 April 2007]

While this isn't the best Charley Chase film (it tends to be a bit more "slapstick-y" than many of his later silents), it is very good and well worth seeing. Charlie has an unreasonably jealous wife who constantly accuses him of being unfaithful. She is so convinced that he MUST be cheating on her that she even enlists the help of a psychic to catch him. While the wife is out getting this help, Charlie decides to have some fun which quickly gets out of hand and results in a woman passed out in his apartment--just as the wife and mentalist come in the living room! So, it's up to Charley and his friend to try to both hide the multiple women now in the room (all there rather innocently, too) as well as pretend to be long-dead family members who will vouch for Charley's character! It's all really silly but good old fashioned fun. While the film lacks some of the polish of his better silents, it is fun to watch and worth a look.

By the way, look for James Finlayson without a mustache as the clerk at the front desk. Also, note the house detective who seems to think his job involves peeking in every keyhole and making sure no one is having any fun.

Great Chase Comedy

[Michael_Elliott · 6 June 2009]

Innocent Husbands (1925)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Charley Chase comedy has him playing a faithful husband who is constantly being accused of cheating by his jealous wife. One day she goes out and a drunk woman passes out in their apparently, which isn't good for Chase when the wife gets home. I've made it no secret that I find Chase to be the third best comedian of the silent era behind Chaplin and Keaton. I find most of his silents to be very entertaining works and I've even enjoyed a handful of his sound shorts at Columbia. This film here is certainly one of his better works and one I'd highly recommend to those new to the comedian. This film has a pretty good set up and a wonderful cast to really bring it home. Katherine Grant is wonderful as the wife, James Finlayson hilarious as a desk clerk and we've got Lucien Littlefield nearly stealing the film as a house detective. Chase too is very good in his role and you can't help but feel for the man. There is one great scene after another including a seance towards the end of the movie as well as a great scene where Chase is innocently walking home when he begins getting chased by a man.

Innocent Charley

[CitizenCaine · 7/10 · 3 August 2008]

The unique thing about Charley Chase was that he had the uncanny ability to take familiar material and turn it on its head. The philandering husband in one manner, shape or form was a very common theme in silent comedy, but here Chase puts a different spin on it and is a completely innocent husband who finds himself in increasingly compromising situations. His always suspicious wife, played by Katherine Grant, seeks the advice of a medium of sorts to confirm her suspicions. Meanwhile, Chase has to fight off more increasingly difficult temptations and situations which may potentially sabotage his standing with his wife. The film starts out a bit slow, my only criticism, but then moves swiftly into delightfully complex comic scenarios. The film really takes off once the action continues inside the same hotel where his wife is seeing a medium in a nearby room. His frantic attempts to avoid being compromised contain moments that could make anyone howl with laughter. Lucien Littlefield is hilarious as an inept house detective. That's James Finlayson as the desk clerk. *** of 4 stars.

Innocence is bliss!

[JohnHowardReid · 10/10 · 5 July 2014]

"Innocent Husbands" is the fourth and by far the funniest Chase comedy on Alpha's "Leo McCarey Directs" DVD. The others are "Jeffries Jr." (1924), a boxing comedy in which Charlie receives some instructions from real-life champ, James J. Jeffries. But Charlie has his best scene not directly with the champ himself but with a goat who accompanies Charlie on his front knees would you believe, while Charlie kneels along the ground looking for a lost tooth! The film ends abruptly but is in otherwise in very good condition. The second two-reeler on the Alpha disc is "Fighting Fluid" (1925) in which we find Jimmy's office full of flappers plus a jokester of a male secretary who makes Jimmy jump. Alas, the movie quickly runs out of office gags and features a long sequence in which Jimmy gets drunk on liquor in the water cooler. Fortunately, the second reel at the boss's house is funnier and more inventive. Third film on the Alpha disc is "Bad Boy" which continues the theme of "Jeffries Jr." and finds Jimmy forced to toughen up in his dad's iron works. Jimmy himself would rather be a mother's boy. This film has some amusing moments but can't make up its mind where it wants to go and whose side Jimmy should take. On the other hand, "Innocent Husbands" is genuinely funny from first to last. Unlike the previous films. it is not just a series of one-liners, but one gag builds on another, making an all-around hilarious comedy that builds on just the one pretext, namely is Jimmy true to his wife? More characters are introduced into the plot, making it more complicated and thus funnier and funnier. The support cast is great and Leo McCarey's timing and direction really brilliant.

Not guilty

[hte-trasme · 8/10 · 6 February 2011]

"Innocent Husbands" is a very funny short comedy, and a good example of Charley Chase's idiosyncratic point of view as it translated to a style of comedy. It's full of physical humor, but that physicality is always strongly grounded by situation -- a situation which is funny in itself - - and is never broad. Charley Chase is to be admired for the compactness yet completeness of his farces.

Here we are familiar already with the figures of the suspicious wife and the titular innocent husband; they need be introduced only in shorthand. This allows the rest of the film to become a steady and measured escalation of the concept -- Charley is put in situations that will look increasingly compromising and will be increasingly difficult to explain away when his wife gets back, while his actual situation as far as philandering is concerned becomes less and less enticing. The absurdity grows while the action revolves dancelike, giving a kind of incongruous artfulness to the silliness of what is going on.

Katherine Grant is one of the better female supporting players who was appearing in Hal Roach films at this time, and she gives a good performance here: given the role of Charley's stern and suspicious wife she plays it with enough seriousness to allow the humor of the events surrounding her to show through and make the scenes believable. Frequent Laurel and Hardy supporting player James Finlayson gets a funny turn without his usual false moustachio.

The plot strain that has Charley's night become increasingly unpleasant -- as he is dragged to a party he doesn't want to attend then is saddled against his will with an extremely unpleasant date -- generates a lot of good situations and casts new light with an original twist on the familiar backbone situation of the wrongly-suspected husband.