Just a Good Guy

A bumbling grocery-store employee must deal with such job-related problems as a conniving boss, unruly customers, a baby alligator and an escaped lunatic, all of which culminates in a wild melee involving hurled cakes, pies, buckets of jam and bags of flour.

The two-reel comedies Will Rogers made for producer Hal Roach during the 1923-4 season are a mixed lot. Two of the shorts feature parodies of then-current movie stars (Douglas Fairbanks, Valentino, etc.) and are still enjoyable for buffs interested in the silent era.

There is harmony in The Café until it is accidentally discovered that lovely Mary has had a fortune left her, whereupon Beery, the proprietor, Trask and Murray, two entertainers, all race to her home with the idea of marrying her.

Chaos reigns in Louise Fazenda's kitchen as the cat stalks and consumes the bird in the cuckoo clock and the baby paints its face with jam. In her next job in a restaurant kitchen, Louise scrambles up her powder puff and her biscuits. The cook orders her to lighten them up. She blows them up like balloons, but they come out like rubber balls and so she is bounced out of that job. In her next position as housekeeper to a rich family, she throws a party for her friends when the family goes on vacation and they turn the house topsy-turvy.

A henpecked husband and his wife vacation at a seaside resort. While he's enjoying the view of the local bathing beauties, he has to be careful not to let his wife see him enjoying himself.

A police lieutenant and a female reporter investigate a series of murders committed by a hooded killer in an old dark house.

“ Polly Moran, known as Becky O'Brien in this picture, conducts a pawn shop with Ben Turpin and Charles Lynn as her appraisers and clerks. Ben is her sweetheart and Polly sure does love him, but Ben is not quite so enthusiastic, excepting when the cash register is made to tingle, then all his love is for Becky. ” - Synopsis from Motion Picture News

A 1917 short film directed by Hampton Del Ruth & Fred Hibbard.