A Hash House Fraud
About A Hash House Fraud
At the Busy Bee Beanery a sign says not to flirt with the cashier. The owner, played by Hugh Fay, stuffs a glove-finger into a bun and calls it a frankfurter, then hits the cook, Fritz Schade, with a plate of rubbery food. The cash drawer is empty, so he fills the room with men eating free and has Louise Fazenda ring up a dollar each time one leaves. Harry Bernard and his wife, Billie Brockwell, agree to buy the place. She then makes the freeloaders pay. A fight starts. Bernard telephones for the riot squad. Fay and Fazenda crank his roadster and run; the Keystone Cops chase them onto a pier, the car stops short, and the pair fly into the water. Fazenda is pulled out. The cook hugs her. The owner does not come back.
Cast & crew
More about A Hash House Fraud
Charles Parrott, later billed as Charley Chase, directed. Mack Sennett produced. Mutual Film Corporation released it on 10 June 1915. The working title was A Business Deal, and the Keystone number was K-161. Silent Era lists it as Chase's first directing credit, and notes that the film may have reached Mutual's New York office on 2 June 1915.
Themes
Making
The café gags were shot as a Keystone one-reeler: a glove passed off as a sausage, a hatch slammed on the owner's head, and a car chase that ends when the roadster hits the end of a pier.
Preservation
Prints exist. Silent Era cites 16mm and 8mm reduction positives in private collections. A full copy is on Wikimedia Commons, and another is on the Internet Archive.
Notes
- A hash house was 1910s American slang for a cheap eating house.
- The print Silent Era measured is one reel, 1,025 feet.
- Chester Conklin plays the police chief. Don Barclay, uncredited, plays a customer in a Chaplin-like walk.
- Glen Cavender and Charles Lakin play cops. Harold J. Binney, Fred Fishback, and Billy Gilbert play customers who eat without paying.
- Silent Era records surviving 16mm and 8mm reduction prints in private collections, and lists the film as public domain in the United States.
Scenes
- The owner puts his finger in a glove, tucks it in a bun, and pulls the finger out as he sets the sandwich down.
- Fazenda rings a dollar for every man who walks out, though none of them has paid.
- The roadster hits the end of the pier and throws Fay and Fazenda into the water. The cops throw her a line.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (A Hash House Fraud (1915).webm)
- Internet Archive (1915AHashHouseFraudChesterConklinLouiseFazenda)
