A Man About Town

One of Stan Laurel's silent short subjects made before Hal Roach teamed him with Mr. Hardy finds the simpleminded and quite literal Stanley told by a streetcar conductor to follow a pretty young woman to get to where he was going. So Stan follows the instructions and follows Katherine Grant all over town.

Laurel's very innocence makes him the only one who could sell this kind of situation and not be thought of as a stalker. Still it's quite a stretch.

Ollie might not be in the cast but their favorite foil James Finlayson is. Grant's first stop is a department store and Stan dutifully follows her in. Finlayson is the store detective and thinks something is up. Then he starts following Stan throughout the city determined to find something wrong. Naturally Laurel innocently gets in all kinds of situations. It's Finlayson who gets the laughs as he keeps making a fool of himself.

The end is quite ironical considering what Finlayson was trying to do to Stan. Finlayson really should have rated star billing here.