The Flirts (1919) Online

"The Flirts" is a short that comes from the same film company that produced a series of films starring Billy West as a blatant ripoff of the great Charlie Chaplin's act. West had skipped out on his commitment to the series and the embarrassingly-named Harry Mann to replace him in films that included this one. Mann doesn't quite so much seem to imitate Chaplin so much as West did as to play a kind of generic comedy stock character of the man in a bowler hat and little moustache. The title cards even still identify this as one of the "Billy West Comedies," and the producers take the very un-Chaplinesque step of putting Mann into a kind of comedy team, paired with the moustachioed Jimmie Adams.

The short is charmingly carefree and freewheeling; it's fast, entertaining and rather plot less but keeps moving. Almost the sum total of events is that Mann and Adams area couple of guys who go into a hotel and, in accordance with the title, flirt with some women. They run into some difficulty with the standard hotel detective, and there's a caricature Frenchman who challenges Harry to duel. There are a lot of pretty women in bathing suits who run around, providing the two heroes with some fodder for stunned jokes and looking nice for the audience in the Sennett Bathing Beauties mode. There's a clever gag with a mannequin leg mistaken for real that would later be used to great effect by both Chase and Harry Langdon.

This is directed by Charley Chase, later to star in his own great series of shorts, and I saw it as part of a collection of his early work. The plotlessness affords no opportunity for the intricately-plotted farces that he specialized in, but his natural flair for this style means that "The Flirts" is a tour-de-force of choreographed and typed comic motion, as the two comics and their foils simply move quickly and humorously around the hotel set. As in many of his later films, the wonderful timing of the film-making was almost musical.

There's no story her for the comedy to come from, not really much of any character, and not actually that many gags (though there are quite a few examples of Charley Chase's wonderfully goofy sense of humor), but it successfully pulls off a victory of style over substance and shows us a film that's quite entertaining indeed through its flair and grace of progression in its timing and motion.

This film stars Jimmy Adams and Harry Mann. It's included in a DD set for Charley Chase fans because he directed this film. In fact, Chase directed TONS of films for Hal Roach Studios--including some for the Little Rascals and Laurel & Hardy--and many others. In many cases he's credited as 'Charles Parrott' because that is his real name. And, incidentally, Charley's brother also starred in and directed a TON of shorts as Paul or James Parrott.

This film is a knockoff of a Charlie Chaplin film. During Charlie's heyday, quite a few comics impersonated him--and in many cases they didn't even let the audiences know they were NOT seeing Chaplin. In this case, it's Harry Mann playing Chaplin and he did appear to be Chaplin if you aren't looking very closely. However, unlike Billy West (who was great at knocking off Chaplin's act), Mann doesn't quite act like Chaplin.

As for the plot, the title of the film pretty much says it all. Two jerks spend most of the film running about a hotel making passes at women and behaving boorishly. There is a lot of punching and slapping and kicking as well--mostly for no particular reason. And, as I watched, I also noticed that there really was no reason for one of them to look like Chaplin--the film would have worked the same without this dumb ruse. All in all, the film is only noteworthy if you want to see one of the faux Chaplins--otherwise, it's a bit dull and unfunny.

By the way, get a load of the pretty ladies in bathing suits. My, how times have changed since 1919!

Flirts, The (1919)

* (out of 4)

After Chaplin impersonator Billy West left the comedy series, he hand picked Harry Mann (no jokes, that's his name) to take over his role as the Tramp. In this film Mann and Jimmie Adams play a couple losers who stalk out women in a hotel and constantly flirt with them. That's pretty much the entire story to this two-reeler that runs about two reels too long. Perhaps I'm just not a Chaplin impersonator type but I found this film to be less annoying than ROLLING STONE but that isn't saying too much. This here is just 20-minutes of pure boredom as we really don't see anything funny and the comic acts are rather bland from start to finish. Mann's Chaplin act is somewhat spot-on but, like West, he just doesn't have that certain magic touch or timing to get any laughs. I found the film to move very slowly as we just pretty much got the same thing over and over as the two men had to fight one another off to get to the latest women and then there's the hotel detective that they must get around.