Starring: Larry Semon, Oliver Hardy, Dorothy Dwan, Frank Alexander, Alma Bennett, and Fred Spencer
Directors: Larry Semon and Noel M. Smith
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
After one of their colleagues (Dwan) is kidnapped by the dangerous gang of bootleggers run by Slim Chance (Hardy), a pair of plain-clothes police officers (Semon and Spencer) set out to save her by busting it and the speakeasy it operates through.
"Her Boy Friend" is a fun action/comedy that presages and boils down all the elements of the buddy cop genre into a fun, fast-moving 12-minute film. There's a fight scene that's very amusing and an extended back-and-forth escape-and-chase scene aboard a ship that serves as the film's climax that's got even more laughs, as well as some impressive stunts. Along the way there are some prop gags and other routines that work to varying degrees, but the action scenes are where this film is at its best.
This film would have gotten an Eight-star rating if not for it completely falling apart at the end. I think they were going to a meta-gag that breaks the fourth wall and pokes fun at the way so many of the short comedies from a few years earlier ended, but I also think they failed. An actual resolution to the story we just watched would have been preferable to the out-of-left-field twist to the character relationships and the clumsily and lamely executed pratfall.
But why don't you take a few minutes out of your day to check the film out yourself, since it's embedded below via YouTube? I'm pretty sure you'll find it to be time well spent (since you're here, reading posts on this blog).
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