Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew return in a domestic comedy about a man who stays out all night playing poker, worrying his wife. His friends try to cover for him via telegram but end up making things even worse!
Home Media Availability: Released on Bluray by Kino Lorber.
The Bro Code
I think it’s safe to say that the sitcom would have existed without Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew but it probably would have been a lot less fun! The Drews (she was credited as Mrs. in the screen team, real name: Lucille McVey) were the crown jewel of the Vitagraph film company’s push for witty, character-driven comedy without the stunts and prop guns and brawls that were prevalent in slapstick of the period.
The Drews, who also had their hand in writing and directing (Sidney was the director here), would almost always play a married or engaged couple and would switch off playing the “villain” of the piece. The conflict was always some sort of low stakes irritation that would build and build into a delightful punchline at the end. For example, in Diplomatic Henry, Sidney attempts to win sympathy points with his family by claiming falsely Lucille is a slacker, in Foxtrot Finesse, he tries to escape a his dance-happy wife by faking an injury. In By Might of His Right, Lucille allows her obnoxious little brother free reign in the house, driving Sidney nuts, and in Miss Sticky-Moufie-Kiss, she plays a young lady with an addiction to baby talk.
It’s Sidney’s turn to play the misbehaving spouse in A Telegraphic Tangle. He is John Smithers, a businessman, and she is his adoring wife, Emily. Emily wants John to come home on time so they can attend a lecture together but he runs into an old college friend whom he has not seen in years and agrees to spend a bit of time with him playing tiddlywinks. Reader, it was not tiddlywinks. John is soon fighting for his life in a high stakes poker game and doesn’t want to leave on a winning streak. Emily? Lecture? What are those?
Emily becomes worried when John doesn’t return home that night and the next morning, she sends telegrams to his four closest friends asking them if they have seen him. Each friend receives the telegram and gives a knowing chuckle: John clearly has some “business” on the side and they will give him cover, as gentlemen do for one another. All four of them separately send word back to Emily that John had spent the night with them. The first telegram causes relief but the other three get her suspicions up. The men don’t live near one another, how could he have stayed with all of them?
Meanwhile, John returns to his office with a massive hangover but he soon sobers up when his friends arrive. They have to have the gossip: where was he last night? (Each friend asks in succession and each repeated title card adds some exclamation points, a simple but effective little gag.) John realizes to his horror that he now has four alibis that all cancel one another out and Emily is on the way! Oh what a tangled web! He is doomed! Or is he? See A Telegraphic Tangle to find out.
A Telegraphic Tangle is a very typical Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew comedy, which is to say everyone is charming and wacky without behaving too extremely and a good time will be had by all in the audience. The direction of the series tended to be direct and to the point but there is a nice silhouette shot as Emily gives up on her husband’s return and some interesting cuts between John desperately putting a hail Mary plan into action as his wife confronts each of his friends with their false alibi.
(Spoiler) In other Drew comedies, Sidney’s mild punishment for his crimes is meted out by good-natured Lucille but this time, he accidentally constructs his own, more serious downfall. In desperation, he asks a beat cop to support his explanation: he and his four friends were pulled over for a traffic violation and had to spend the night in jail as they did not have cash for the fine. The explanation sticks and it looks like the boys club will emerge victorious with the wife’s suspicions allayed… but then the cop announces that the reason he came around that morning was to collect those fines. Let that be a lesson to you!
On a side note, another enjoyable aspect of this comedy is seeing the process of telegrams and replies, showing just how fast news and conversations could travel across a city. This, of course, also illustrates how thoughtless John was in his actions as he had the same services available to him but he left Emily quite literally in the dark.
The Drew comedies reward close viewing and some knowledge of period culture. The actors are performing in a comedic style, slightly exaggerated but are more subtle than, say, the spirit gum-mustachioed maniacs over at Keystone. For example, the film never overtly states anything about the bro code shared by John’s friends but we are meant to infer it by their sly grins. Nudge nudge, wink wink.
Battle of the sexes films of this period could sometimes be mean-spirited (John Bunny-Flora Finch films, another Vitagraph duo, frequently ended with Finch’s humiliation) but the Drews kept things light, pleasant, and affectionate. In short, you can actually see why their screen characters would want to stay married even after all their misadventures and that puts them ahead of even modern marital comedies. McVey-Drew had been a screenwriter before her marriage to Sidney and was an acknowledged equal partner behind the scenes, which helps account for the balanced tone of the duo’s films.
A Telegraphic Tangle is a cute entry in the series, though it doesn’t hit quite the comedic heights of some of their other films. Still, it’s a merry little one-reeler and an excellent example of the kind of light and airy marital comedy that the Drews did so well.
Where can I see it?
Released on Bluray by Kino as part of their Vitagraph comedy collection. This three-disc set features numerous other never-before-released Drew comedies, along with other Vitagraph stars. (Thanks to Kino for the review copy.)
☙❦❧
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