Only reel two survives. A 1957 perpetual inventory record indicates reel one had decomposed while in storage at Bonded in New York as of 1949. There’s been some confusion that Oliver Hardy has a role; he does not. We cannot view the missing reel but studio payroll records tie Hardy to other productions during this period, nor does he appear in any extant stills for this subject.

The gifted Charley Chase was partial to the comedy of embarrassment, which he relishes here! Plus he seemed to get a kick out of naming his always engaging pictures as a variant of some important contemporary feature film (unless it happened to be an M-G-M product, because bosses down the street on Washington Boulevard discouraged trading on their properties). In 1927 Paramount had just made THE WAY OF ALL FLESH with Emil Jannings -- serious business. The Chase two-reeler was released throughout the United Kingdom as THE WAY OF ALL DRESS (“pants” are “trousers” there) and it was the European camera negative for this version that we worked from in preserving reel two a dozen years ago. The flash titles had to be stretched, and some scenes do reflect advanced nitrate decomposition. This same physical element was what Robert Youngson excerpted for use in THE FURTHER PERILS OF LAUREL & HARDY (1967), now forty years old, as was PANTS when Youngson made his compilation.

This was only the third Chase comedy assembled for release by Roach’s new distribution organization, M-G-M, in a fine season that also included LIMOUSINE LOVE and US among the ten Chase units Roach delivered (reduced to eight productions, annually, per company, with the arrival of sound). The picture was shot from August 12 through 22, and issued to theaters on October 29. Laurel & Hardy’s PUTTING PANTS ON PHILIP was released a month later, and each production unit had driven the same few blocks west on Washington to shoot in the tiny, familiar shopping district of Culver City. Because Hal Roach himself frequently authored the basic stories for all his series, there are many examples of Chase or Our Gang or Laurel & Hardy simultaneously developing plots with ties (pants, e.g.) to one another.

Since we cannot present reel one, here is the capsule plot offered as the opening paragraph found in story editor H.M. Walker’s personal copy of the surprisingly detailed and faithfully filmed ten page shooting script: “The story is about a bashful bookkeeper who in doing his employer’s wife a favor of purchasing a pair of pants for her husband and trying them on, gets caught in the act and is unable to explain to his employer, causing him great embarrassment.”

Richard W. Bann