Cinema: The New Pictures: Jan. 15, 1934

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Sons of the Desert (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) shows Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy behaving foolishly as members of an idiotic secret order. Fat supercilious Hardy sneaks off to the Chicago convention of the Sons of the Desert by telling his wife (Mae Busch) he is going to Honolulu for his nerves. Laurel, scratching his whisk-broom forelock, accompanies him. On their return, there is confusion because the steamer from Honolulu, on which their wives expected them, has been wrecked. Laurel & Hardy cope with the situation ignominiously, Hardy with a feeble lie, Laurel with a blubbering confession.

What distinguishes Sons of the Desert from other Laurel & Hardy comedies is less its plot than the presence in the cast of Charley Chase, a lanky, glib comedian with a mouse-paw mustache and a moron's chuckle. Appearing at the Chicago convention as a Son of the Desert from Texas, Charley Chase greets Laurel & Hardy when they arrive from California by whacking them with a paddle. He invites them to his table and puts in a long distance call for his sister in Los Angeles. who turns out to be Hardy's wife. Stupid Charley Chase does not know that he has nearly precipitated a domestic crisis. He plants a fat wallet on the floor, continues to paddle arriving Sons of the Desert when they stoop to pick it up. This trick he considers a "darb." In Sons of the Desert, Charley Chase makes his first appearance in a full length picture. His rôle shows him to less advantage than the series of two-reel Hal Roach comedies which, since 1930, have made him one of Hollywood's most famed funnymen. Charley Chase's value, like that of most cinema comedians, is his appearance. He is a pale, clerical, common place individual whose manners should match his unobtrusive looks. Instead, he is equipped with preposterous permanent jitters. He produces laughter founded largely upon disapproval. His favorite antic is grinning self-assurance after some display of crass social ignorance.

Charley Chase has been in the cinema since 1912, when he made his first picture for Universal. He was $5-per-day extra for Keystone, before he became a Keystone director, an actor for Hal Roach in 1925. As officious offscreen as on, Chase writes and directs his own two-reel comedies. He planned and helped build his own bungalow in Hollywood. His hair, which photographs black, is as grey as Charlie Chaplin's. He dresses foppishly, plays seven musical instruments, currently receives more fan mail than any other comedian in cinema.