Stolen Goods (1924) Online

This is an early Jimmy Jump comedy starring Charley Chase. While I usually love Chase, this one seemed to be missing something and that something was laughs. The film begins with two older gentlemen having a minor fender bender. The two guys notice that Jimmy was standing there but he didn't see the accident and spends his time instead making time with one of the men's daughter.

Later, Jimmy is at work and the women are rabid due to a big sale. In the midst of this, a woman is caught shoplifting. However, it's the daughter from early in the film and she's a kleptomaniac. Her father arrives and wants help to cure her--so Jimmy calls a specialist--who ends up being the other man involved in the accident and he stops off. So, Jimmy comes up with an idea to magically solve the problem and the film ends--very prematurely if you ask me, as so much did NOT seem to be resolved and the laughs weren't yet in the script.

Adequate and nothing more.

I'm afraid I'll have to disagree respectfully with a previous IMDb commentator who doesn't think "Stolen Goods," from Charley Chase's early Jimmy Jump series, proceeds from much in the way of the grotesque or the fantastic; it's slightly unusual premise is that Charley gets hired at a department store because the owner's kleptomaniac daughter has fallen for him. I also have to disagree about the lack of subtext -- based solely on a very funny sequence that seems to be about a very bashful, giggly man who ends up trying to buy some women's lingerie.

The scenes of the impossibly crowded department store prefigure when this concept will be milked more in Chase's later comedy "Fluttering Hearts," and the even later Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts comedy he directed, "Bargain of the Century." The construction isn't as complex and fine-tuned as in some other Chase comedies, but that does leave room for many fun, kooky gags around the "car-crash" at the beginning and the department store, and the central closing gag at the hits home really well and is set-up perfectly. Maybe it's the influence of director Leo McCarey which contributes to the added crazy, gaggy feeling of parts of this, but of course he is good match fro Chase's style.

A one-reeler from Charley's 'Jimmy Jump' period, this is a competent comedy with a number of good set-piece gags, but almost nothing in the way of either character development or extended gags -- it's amazing how going from eight to 16 minutes opened up the ability of Charley and Leo McCarey to make not just a good comedy, but a great one.

In large part, I suspect, Charley was still working his way into the character and still going with what today would be considered G-rated material: no naked ladies, a la LIMOUSINE LOVE, no grotesqueries a la HIS WOODEN WEDDING, no fantasy sequences like LOOKING FOR SALLY and no subtext worth mentioning. But there are a couple of good laughs here and an actual story, abbreviated though it may be.

Stolen Goods (1924)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Lesser Jimmy Jump entry from Hal Roach has Charley Chase yet again playing the part. This time out he falls in love with a woman who just happens to be a kleptomaniac, which doesn't work out too well when he's given the job of floorwalker at a local store. Soon the woman shows up there shoplifting and Jimmy must try and find a way to cure her. There were quite a few comedies dealing with kleptomaniacs and they all were rather mixed in term of results and that's pretty much the case here. The early part of the film is extremely funny as Jimmy meets his woman by her father and another man getting into a wreck and eventual fight. This sequence is certainly the highlight of the film as the fathers and then their dogs go at it. The second half of the film, inside the store, doesn't work as well because none of the stealing stuff is all that funny. One great scene does happen inside the store and that's when a bashful man comes in wanting to buy women's lingerie but is too embarrassed.