The Inspector's Double (1916) User Reviews (2)

All Chaplin Imitators Look Alike

[boblipton · 6/10 · 12 August 2021]

Billy Franey is married to Gale Henry. Heinie Conklin is married to Lilian Peacock. When Conklin goes to Miss Henry's house - he's the health inspector -- she thinks he's her husband, because both men are in Chaplin Imitator get-up, and walk the same way, so she calls the cops -- who look like Keystone Kops -- and has him thrown into the loony bin.

The second half of this Joker comedy seems to be lost, but it looks to be very good, largely because, with Chaplin mania beginning to wane, this one seems to have a metacritical comment on Chaplin imitators, and the inability of people to tell them apart. It's hard to understand the absolute public mania about Chaplin in this period, the seemingly uncritical way people seemed to hunger for his movies that anyone could put on a derby, a mustache, and walk pigeon-toed, and the movie theaters would fill up. Some, like Billy West, were very good. Some were ok, and some were absolutely awful, and people didn't care. So when the able comics at Universal's Joker unit decided to make fun of it, they did very well.

I do wish the second half survived, only because I imagine it has everyone dressed up and doing Chaplin imitations.

A case of identical strangers.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 4 July 2022]

"The Inspector's Double" is a very enjoyable comedy from 1916. However, I only gave it a 7 because of the condition of the film. Initially, it looks okay with some minor degradation along the sides. But by the end of the film, it's a total mess...completely degraded and the very ending is missing! Still, it is clever and enjoyable....and worth seeing.

The story uses a trope that today might be seen as ridiculous...but it was 1916 and as such it worked well. A health inspector finds a wallet and so he does the right thing...taking it to the man's house. However, he doesn't realize that the man whose wallet he found is the spitting image of him...and the man's wife thinks it's her hubby who has arrived home. He, naturally, doesn't know her or recognize her...and she assumes it's her husband and he's lost his mind. So, she calls the local assylum and soon attendants arrive to take away the 'insane husband'! What's next? See the film.

As I said above, the very ending is simply degraded so much that there is no ending in the film. But the film still works...and the laughs are actually pretty restrained for the slapstick era. Overall, clever and fun....though annoying that the health inspector and his double are BOTH obvious Chaplin impersonations...a common thing since Chaplin was so popular during this era.