- A Little Bit of Fluff
Infobox Film
name = A Little Bit of Fluff
image_size =
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director =Wheeler Dryden
producer =
writer =Jess Robbins
narrator =
starring =Syd Chaplin Betty Balfour
music =
cinematography =René Guissart George Pocknall
editing =
distributor =Wardour Films (UK)
MGM (USA)
released = May 1928 (UK)
runtime =
country = UK
language =silent film
English intertitles
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
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imdb_id = 0019103"A Little Bit of Fluff" a.k.a. "Skirts" is a
comedy genresilent film , filmed in England in 1928, and directed byWheeler Dryden andJesse Robbins . It is based on the farce of the same title by Walter W. Ellis, which premiered at theCriterion Theatre , London, on October 27, 1915, featuring Ernest Thesiger as Bertram Tully. This film version is predated by a 1919 effort directed by Kenelm Foss. In that adaptation, Thesiger reprised his role as Tully, as did Alfred Drayton (Dr. Bigland) and Stanley Lathbury (Nixon Trippett). The 1928 film features Syd Chaplin, half-brother to both Charlie Chaplin and director Wheeler Dryden, as Tully.ynopsis
The misadventures of a young newly-wed man (Chaplin) and an exotic dancer (Balfour), the titular "little bit of fluff." Tully (Chaplin), an effete and completely mother-in-law-dominated new husband becomes unwittingly involved in boxer Hudson's plot to wrest his girlfriend's (Balfour's) $5000 necklace from her in order to pay his gambling debts. Living next door to Maggie, the exotic dancer, Tully is first introduced to her only because his mother-in-law demands that he go next door and make the noise cease--noise from one of Maggie's hedonist parties. Purely by coincidence, then, that evening Tully accompanies his other neighbor, John Ayres, to the club at which Maggie performs as a singer/dancer (The Little Bit of Fluff), his wife and MIL having left town to visit aunty. It is at this club that Tully accidentally acquires the necklace and so, the rest of the farce is taken up with scenes of mistaken identities, moments of being in the wrong places at the wrong times, misunderstandings with wives, stepmothers, and boxer boyfriends, etc. In the end, Hudson is arrested for trying to steal the necklace back from Tully's apartment and all falls back into order--except that Tully has NOT managed to lose his mother-in-law along the way. This film is highlighted by intricate gags, including using a pekinese puppy to moisten stamps, a fantastic spinning headstand by Chaplin, and, perhaps, marred a bit by a lack of plot and an unbearably long scene at the nightclub in which Chaplin mistakes a female "little person" for a little girl. This film definitely follows along well from the sort of character Chaplin created in his Warner Brothers contract--a winning one for him.
Cast
*
Syd Chaplin : Bertram Tully
*Betty Balfour : Mamie Scott
*Edmund Breon : John Ayres
*Nancy Rigg : Violet Tully
*Clifford McLaglen : Henry Hudson
*Annie Esmond : Aunt Agatha
*Enid Stamp-Taylor : Susie West
*Cameron Carr : Fred Carter
*Haddon Mason : The Wasp
*Harry McCoy
*Dorothy Bartlam : Bit role (uncredited)External links
*imdb title|id=0019103|title=A Little Bit of Fluff
* [http://sydchaplin.com sydchaplin.com]
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