Three-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Leo McCarey (1898-1969), born Thomas Leo McCarey in Los Angeles, began as a writer and director of silent shorts before graduating to feature films in the 1930s, including the Marx Brothers comedy Duck Soup (1933) and Ruggles of Red Gap (1935) starring Charles Laughton.
McCarey won his first Oscar as Best Director for The Awful Truth (1937), then repeated the feat with Going My Way (1944), which won seven Oscars in all - including Best Picture, Best Actor (Bing Crosby), Best Supporting Actor (Barry Fitzgerald) and for McCarey's Original Screenplay. He also earned Oscar nominations for the screenplays of Love Affair (1939), My Favorite Wife (1940) and My Son John (1952) He also won for Best Director The Bells of St. Mary's (1945).
Early in his career, McCarey teamed with funnyman Charley Chase for a succession of popular comedy shorts, four of which are included in this selection and three of which find Chase playing his signature character, Jimmy Jump.
Jeffries Jr. (1924): Bespectacled bumbler Jimmy Jump is tired of being picked on so he takes boxing lessons from real-life former heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries --who soon discovers he's got his hands full with this eager acolyte!
Fighting Fluid (1925): Jimmy Jump is determined to declare his love for the boss' daughter. He finds the courage to make plain his intentions after a few drinks from the boss' water cooler -- which is actually filled with bootleg liquor!
Bad Boy (1925): Jimmy Jump -- this time billed as "Jimmie" -- returns home from college and is immediately put to work in his father's iron works so he can toughen up. But Jimmie is also a mama's boy, and finds himself torn between his domineering parents.
Innocent Husbands (1925): Charley Chase plays Melvin, a put-upon husband whose wife constantly suspects him of being a womanizer. No matter how innocent his intentions or actions, poor Melvin always seems to end up in compromising positions with the opposite sex.