The inclusion of this extremely unfunny comedy short on All Day Entertainment's otherwise exemplary American Slapstick 2 set is, perhaps, an attempt to prove that the style didn't die with the advent of sound. However, the film almost entirely eschews physical comedy in favor of extremely labored ethnic humor, here at the expense of the French. Willie Howard plays Professor Pierre Ginsberg, a hapless academic unwise in the ways of love who finds himself wooing the wife of a Chicago gangster on board an ocean liner. There are next to no laughs here, and the only spark of ingenuity arrives early in the form of a visual non sequitur involving truffles and umbrellas.
Review of Playboy Number One
