Big Red Ridinghood, Charley Chase's last released one-reeler, is also among the most gag-filled. As in many of his one-reelers, Charley plays Jimmy Jump, "an intellectual giant, but a financial dwarf," as noted by the opening title. Charley's task in this film is to translate the story "Little Red Ridinghood" into Swedish. So, in the entire film, Charley tries to finish reading the story by skimming the book without buying it, and goes to ridiculous extremes in trying to read it. When a man buys the book and puts it in the back seat of his car, Jimmy rides alongside the car with his bicycle. He is so absorbed in his reading that he doesn't realize that a couple of gangsters have stolen the car and are being chased by the police. After a car-to-car shootout, with Jimmy oblivious to the goings on around him, he rides his bicycle off the dock and finishes the story while floating in the water.
The simple and rather silly storyline of the short allows for many a fine gag. One well-executed sequence occurs when Jimmy tries to read the story from atop a sunshade above a storefront, using binoculars. A policeman, persuing a thief, shoots his gun in the air hitting the sunshade, which falls to the ground along with Jimmy. There are many obvious slapstick incidents throughout the short -- Jimmy Jump getting pricked on his rear by a sharp object, or Jimmy trying to avoid a suspicious cop -- while other moments are more inspired. The elaborate shootout and Jimmy's drop into the water at the film's finale are the short's most exciting moments. The final shot that ends the comedy, after Jimmy rides off the dock, is quite memorable. Right after he plummets into the sea, he finishes the story and a wide smile comes over his face, but just as quickly fear registers on his mug when he realizes where he is.
Another memorable, yet rather surreal, scene in the film is the fantasy sequence. In this bizarre scene, Jimmy is an inept woodman and Helen Gilmore plays a grotesque Little Red Ridinghood. Jimmy manages to chop down every tree, except the one he wants. There is a crazed moment in the dream sequence when Charley is being chased by the Big Bad Wolf and manages to cartoonishly climb up a tree to avoid being caught. The whole fantasy sequence itself comes out of nowhere and seems quite out of place in the short, which otherwise contains a number of inventive gags and inspired moments. The sequence itself is run-of-the-mill and undistinguished, the kind of ridiculous scene Chase would eschew in his subsequent, more realistic comedies.
The climax, a car-to-car shootout scene, is a variation of the "wild chase" sequences used in many slapstick comedies. This scene is a relic of Charley's Keystone days and he puts a fresh spin on that well-worn device. Original and exciting, the shootout is both skillfully acted and filmed.
Charley Chase shot Big Red Ridinghood in 1924 but the film sat on the shelf until the following year. When it was finally released in April 1925, it became the last Jimmy Jump one-reeler that the public would see before Chase devoted himself exclusively to two reelers. In a sense, Big Red Ridinghood served as the perfect way for Charley Chase to bid goodbye to the one-reel format. It includes original gags and other, more derivative gags; inspired sequences and not-so-inspired sequences. Big Red Ridinghood has all of these, plus hints of comic brilliance that would soon reappear in spades in many of Chase's comedy shorts. It showcases the one-reel comedy in all its forms, with its wacky slapstick and surreal sequences, crazed car chases and shootouts, as well as in all of the inventive gags that naturally developed from the short's paper-thin story. The film is perfectly paced, a concept that Chase had already mastered by this point in his career. Big Red Ridinghood can be viewed as Chase's seemingly unintentional comic valentine to the one-reel form, and one of the most satisfying of his Jimmy Jump comedies.
"Big Red Ridinghood". Directed by Leo McCarey. With Charley Chase, Martha Sleeper, Richard Daniels, Helen Gilmore. Produced by Hal Roach. Released on April 26, 1925 (filmed in 1924).
Back to the main page of "The World
of Charley Chase"