Series: Paul Parrott Director: Jay A. Howe Producer: Hal Roach Photography: Editor: Stars: James Parrott, Jobyna Ralston, Eddie Baker Company: Pathé Exchange Released: 11 March 1923 Length: 1 reel Production No.: C-52 Filming dates: May 31 - June 4, 1922; retakes December 11,12,19, 1922 Rating: 3/10

Shoot Straight

Available on DVD:

Paul (James Parrott) is hunting squirrels with the aide of a book and a shotgun. When he looks in his pocket mirror he spots one of the crafty buggers on the end of his rifle and tries to shoot its ass off. The creature escapes into a hole in the ground so Paul baits it with a conker on a fishing line but the squirrel outwits him. Paul's activities soon attract the undesired attention of a skunk nearby who runs off with the conker. Paul manages to wrap his rifle around a tree before almost blowing his ears off with an unexpected shot. After bumping into a tree with a cat in it, he turns his attention to a group of rabbits who all scurry into their holes when Paul fires his bent gun. Not to be defeated, Paul retrieves six socks hanging on a washing line to stuff into the six holes occupied by the six rabbits (fancy that, the exact number of socks required). When Paul fires his gun again the rabbits run into their burrows and get entangled in the socks, giving Paul the victory. At the Deadshot Hunting Lodge, some hunters set off to hunt some ducks at a lake, taking some decoy ducks with them to distract the real ducks. They don't take too kindly to finding Paul shooting at the ducks when they arrive. After being advised to get his own blind, Paul stands in the lake with.... a blind, which he hides behind before surprising the ducks with his gun. In waist-deep water he takes several shots at the defenceless birds before getting frustrated and shooting under the waterline and blowing up the place. The Lodge hunters get into a dispute with Paul over shooting rights and Paul is banished back to the land where he takes aim at some flying ducks. A bundle of feathers lands upon him but he claims to have missed the target. He then attaches his finshing line to a duck which flies off with the rifle. And then comes the bear. That's right, the bear. I'll leave it there.

Favourite bit Paul shoots into the air and is immediately covered in falling feathers before he declares he missed!

Trivia • Copyrighted February 23, 1923. • The restored version of the film available on the Accidentally Preserved Vol. 1 DVD contains a score by Ben Model. • The book read by Paul is "How To Hunt Squirrels" by A. Mutt. • If you strip away the opening credits of the film, James Parrott is the only person in the film for the first 3 and half minutes. My opinion • You can watch a perfectly preserved and beautifully restored copy of a bad film and be left wondering why they bothered? Paul Parrott comedies were really not that great, and this is no exception. This film is all over the place. It's as though they had ten different writers, none of whom were working in unison and just threw all their ideas into a hat and then filmed it all. I'm sure the last sequence with Paul versus the bear must have been some stupid idea made up by some kid which they filmed for fun and then just tacked on to the rest of the shit that preceded it in the film.

	James Parrott Squirrel hunter
	Jobyna Ralston Deadshot Hunting Lodge patron
	Eddie Baker Deadshot Hunting Lodge patron
	George Rowe Deadshot Hunting Lodge patron

UNIDENTIFIED CAST

CREDITS (click image to enlarge)	INTERTITLES (click image to enlarge)

This page was last updated on: 11 March 2023