Series: Charley Chase Director: Leo McCarey Producer: Hal Roach Titles: Photography: Len Powers, George Stevens Editor: Stars: Charley Chase, Katherine Grant, Noah Young Company: Pathé Exchange Released: 10 May 1925 Length: 2 reels Production No.: E-15 Filming dates: February 11-21, 1925 Rating: 8/10

Looking For Sally

Available on DVD:

Jimmy Jump is on a ship returning to the States from France. He carries a note with him instructing him that he ought to seek out and marry a welfare worker named Sally Kavanaugh. As Jimmy's ship comes into dock Sally is waiting with her parents to greet him. They point Jimmy out to her but she mistakes him for a completely different guy. Just to make matters more difficult Sally walks off in disappointment and another, ugly woman takes her place and stands next to her parents and begins waving at the ship. Jimmy thinks this girl is Sally. A detective (Noah Young) sees Jimmy acting suspiciously and starts to observe him but Jimmy gives him the slip. He sees a beautiful woman whom he does not realise is Sally and he is instantly attracted to her and when a blind man rejects her offer of help by throwing her card into the sea Jimmy dives in after it as he is desperate to know her details. Sally's folks take Jimmy to their waiting car to meet her, but Jimmy talks his way out of doing so and is chased away by the detective. Jimmy then wanders the streets searching for Sally and is pursued by a cop. He uses the officer's cap to draw a diagram of Sally, not realising she just got out of a cab behind him. Jimmy then runs off and bumps into the detective before eventually seeing Sally doing her work as a missionary and improving the life of a guy she has on stage. Jimmy changes his clothes to avoid detection and goes into the building to act as a potential client of hers. He gets his chance when she asks for a volunteer and he begins to tell her and the audience of his time in college and then later as a hotel clerk.

Jimmy interferes with a billiards game being played among guests and ends up cracking the cue ball onto the manager's forehead before attending to a guest's horse which has been left out in the rain. After trying to shield the animal with a small umbrella Jimmy then leads the horse into the hotel and tries to check it into a room. Jimmy takes the horse upstairs and enters a guest's room whilst he is sleeping and cheekily helps himself to some straw frkm the mattress before putting the horse to bed in another room. The manager flips out and throws Jimmy out. In Jimmy's next flashback sequence he tells of how he was a down and out alcoholic who wanders into a bar, orders a drink he cannot pay for and then invites the barman to kick him out but not before cleverly stealing the bottle from the counter. The bottle is later crushed to bits and Jimmy loses the plot. Back in the present and Sally takes pity on him and offers him her card before walking off. When Jimmy sees that the card identifies her as the woman he has been seeking he runs outside excitedly to tell her but she freaks out and quickly drives off. Jimmy chases the car down the street until he finds a car rental garage and hires a car with a driver who is so slow that Jimmy can actually run faster than the car! So he takes control and drives the car himself, loses his hat in the wind as he drives. Jimmy flags down a motorcycle cop and gives him his card to give to Sally, which he does after he catches her up. Finally Sally and Jimmy are reunited but their reunion is short-lived when both the detective and the policeman from earlier collar Jimmy. As they argue Jimmy slips out of his jacket and hitches a ride onto the back of Sally's limousine and away they go.

Favourite bit Charley Chase jumps into the sea from the docks. Respect.

Trivia • Copyrighted April 2, 1925. • The title card consists of a plane, a train, an automobile and a ship. • This was the eleventh time Katherine Grant had starred alongside Charley Chase in one of his films. • After Jimmy rips up Sally's photo and throws the pieces off the ship, why does the small guy whom Sally has mistaken for Jimmy suddenly wrap up his coat and start shivering? It's dumb enough that a person can't tell the difference between paper and actual snow but to start shivering when you are not actually cold is just stupid. • According to Brian Anthony's book "Smile When The Raindrops Fall", the scenes with the ship were filmed on board the Emma Alexander which was a large cargo ship docked in San Diego Harbour. In one scene, there is a sign on the port side of the ship which says its destination is San Diego. The same ship would later be used in other Chase films such as "Long Fliv The King", "A One Mama Man" and "Never The Dames Shall Meet". • Absolute respect to Charley Chase for the scene where he jumps into the sea to get Sally's card. You clearly see it is him in the shot as he jumps off the pier. The next shot is a long shot of somebody in the sea, which we presume is Chase but they could have possibly used a stunt double for this shot. However, that is definitely Charley when he is fished out of the water by the crane. So top marks to him for that! • That blind guy seems to be rather interested in all the activity that is going on around him when Jimmy gets caught on the crane, doesn't he? • When Jimmy is walking down the street searching for Sally he passes a lady wearing a hat and striped suit [05:39 on the DVD]. This caught my eye because she looked a lot like Dorothy Coburn (but it couldn't have been her, but maybe Clara Guiol?) Anyway, twenty seconds later [05:59 on the DVD] the same woman can be seen up ahead of him in a crowd of girls whom Jimmy walks through. Point is, if he had already passed her how comes she was way ahead of him twenty seconds later? Here are the two scenes in question. Yes I know, I take this stuff far too seriously! • In the flashback scene where Jimmy tells his story to Sally we see him sliding down some stairs and out onto the street whilst holding a bottle Those stairs were actually the stairs to Hal Roach's Admin block. • It's hard to recognise George Rowe without his trademark moustache but he's the bellboy who almost puts his hand up the horse's arse. • How long do you suppose it took them to get the horse to curl up and lie on the that small bed like that? • Sally's address is 10 Buckingham Road. My opinion • Very good film. Interesting storyline to begin with but it starts to lose a bit of ground during the second reel. Overall the film is well paced, with competent editing and a strong performance from Charley Chase. Easily one of his best silent films.

	Charley Chase Jimmy Jump
	Katherine Grant Sally Kavanaugh
	Noah Young Detective
	Leo Willis Cop
	Bynunsky Hyman Man on ship
	John T. Prince Sally's father
	Evelyn Burns Sally's mother
	Sammy Brooks Blind man
	Martin Wolfkeil Fat cop
	Sheila Hayward Not sally
	Chet Brandenburg Man in front row
	Jack Gavin Hotel manager
	George Rowe Bellboy
	George L. Marion Hotel guest
	Marjorie Whiteis Hotel guest with horse
	Jules Mendel Car salesman
	Chris Lynton Dock official
	Clara Guiol Pedestrian
	Rolfe Sedan [?]
	William Gillespie [?]

UNIDENTIFIED CAST

INTERTITLES (click image to enlarge)

LOBBY CARDS (click any image to enlarge)

SHOT ON THE BACK LOT (click any image to enlarge)

SHOT ON LOCATION (click any image to enlarge)

Acknowledgements: Smile When The Raindrops Fall by Brian Anthony & Andy Edmons (book) Jesse Brisson (identification of Marjorie Whiteis, George L. Marion, Sheila Hayward, Martin Wolfkeil) Craig Calman (identification of Clara Guiol) Jorge Finkielman (lobby cards) This page was last updated on: 10 May 2024