The Heckler

In most of the Charley Chase shorts I have seen, Chase delightfully played a likable everyman who innocently stumbled into trouble. In THE HECKLER Chase abandons his usual persona to play an obnoxious loudmouth.

A pitch black Australian comedy that gives heckling an all new bad name and gives one reason to think that this is the type of film you can see someone like the Coen Brothers tackling as a remake in the future, the low budget comedy The Heckler is a film that makes very little sense in the way of logic but provides enough hearty laughs to suggest a cult audience awaits it in the years to come.Continuing on with the recent spate of DIY Australian films, The Heckler is rough around the edges and very far from a cinematic masterclass but it's also another fine example of local filmmakers and actors getting together and giving the movie making business a red hot crack.

Charley Chase's terrific 1940 two-reeler THE HECKLER---sadly unavailable on DVD as of this writing---not only showcased Chase's talent for obnoxious élan (observed to scene-stealing effect in the 1934 Laurel&Hardy classic SONS OF THE DESERT), it also provided a legendary catcall well known to baseball fans who might not know its origin in THE HECKLER. Charley's piercing outcry---the prototype of that single voice that rises above the crowd noise at any baseball game---hilariously causes a hitter to swing and miss so violently that he nearly screws himself into the ground!

'Can Steve repossess his body before this idiot destroys his relationships, his finances and his one shot at fame?' is the question posed by the Melbourne based filmmakers in The Heckler.

Good acting and laughs, especially towards the end. I left pleased with a what just happened vibe.

Charley Chase began his fourth season at Columbia and his last ever -- he died the year this movie was released -- on a high note. THE HECKLER doesn't look like a Chase comedy at all, but he played a similar loud mouth in Laurel & Hardy's SONS OF THE DESERT.

Unless you are an avid film collector of 16mm or 8mm films, this is a hard to find title that deserves to be seen again. By the time this film was released, Charley Chase had done his best work before and behind the camera.

"The Heckler," one of the last shorts Charley Chase made before dying in the year it was released, has become pretty well known as one of his best films, and the best of his 1937-1940 series of two-reelers for Columbia Pictures. Whether it's actually the best is up for debate, and I have seen a couple that edge it out, but that's to their credit, not "The Heckler's" detriment.

In this short, Charley Chase plays an obnoxious guy who loves to go to sporting events in order to taunt the athletes. He's completely boorish and hateful--and everyone around him in the stands hates him.