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Shortly after the release of the highly successful High C's (1930), Charley Chase embarked on filming a sequel to the three-reeler. This comedy became Rough Seas which, like its predecessor, was a three-reel charmer and an out-and-out musical comedy. Rough Seas begins just as the First World War is coming to a close, with American troops stationed in France making the trip back home. Charley smuggles his French sweetheart Antoinette (Thelma Todd) aboard the ship so they can get married in America, the pair's courtship and misadventures having been previously documented in High C's. Charley also smuggles a new love aboard the ship -- his pet monkey, Napoleon, who, we are told, he had saved on the battlefield. Aboard the ship, much of the comedy derives from Charley's attempts to conceal Antoinette and Napoleon from gruff Second Lieutenant Carlton Griffin, Charley's nemesis from High C's. Like the previous film, Chase and his cohorts -- Jimmie Adams, Marvin Hatley, and Frank Gage, also known as The Ranch Boys -- perform a number of songs throughout the comedy: When Johnny Comes Marching Home, You're My Love Unspoken, Asleep in the Deep, and You Are the Ideal of My Dreams, the last of which had also been sung by Oliver Hardy at the beginning of a Laurel and Hardy four-reeler from the same year, Beau Hunks.
Though Rough Seas is in many ways a retread of comic ground that had been previously covered in High C's, Chase's sequel contains a stronger set of comedy sequences. Central to its buoyant comic atmosphere is the engaging presence of Napoleon the monkey, whose primate/human byplay with the comedian is only rivaled in the annals of early film comedy by the similarly simian Josephine in Buster Keaton's The Cameraman (1928). A few deliberate references to High C's give its sequel a self-aware charm, as when Lieutenant Griffin orders Charley to button up his coat and Charley replies, "we're not going to start that again, are we?", in a nod to the same incident in the earlier short and a subtle commentary on the kind of lazy comic rehashing which this film thankfully avoids. Another typically self-conscious Chase gesture occurs after Antoinette dons a soldier's uniform while still wearing her high heeled shoes, causing Charley to roar with laughter, quipping, "now sweetheart, this isn't a musical comedy!"
Upon its release, Rough Seas prompted a review in Variety that was downright hostile: "Remarkable that in this era the Hal Roach studio could turn out such an utterly useless slapstick comedy short of the fashion of 1915, with or without Charley Chase...If made for the foreign trade where Chase holds some popularity, it should be sent there and not shown here, to protect Roach's and Chase's reps at home, if any...Silliest sort, just plain open face the slapstickers used up so long ago...Shorts of this sort call for no detail in notice. That would be as bad a waste as they are and this is."
Well, nuts to them too! Rough Seas is, in fact, a very enjoyable entry in the Chase series, very much on par with its predecessor. The musical numbers are quite good, if only slightly weaker than those in High C's. The gags in the comedy, however, are superior to those in the earlier short, if more often cute than genuinely clever, with a higher percentage of Rough Seas devoted to comedy sequences than musical numbers. All in all, both films are sprightly, enjoyable comedies, and represent Chase's best work in the potentially awkward three reel format. Though released months apart, High C's and Rough Seas effectively comprise a short Charley Chase "feature" if screened back-to-back and -- perhaps most intriguingly -- reveal the untapped long-form musical comedy possiblities of the comedian's sound-era film career.
"Rough Seas" (1931) Directed by James Parrott. With Charley Chase, Thelma Todd, Carlton Griffin, Frank Brownlee, Harry Bernard, Charlie Hall, Jerry Mandy, The Ranch Boys including Jimmie Adams, T. Marvin Hatley, and Frank Gage. Produced by Hal Roach. Production number C38E (English version), shot from January 9-24, 1931. Released on April 25, 1931. A Spanish-language version of this film, entitled Monerias, featured Angelica Benitez, Enrique Acosta, and Manuel Granado (Paul Ellis).