The Italian Straw Hat (Un chapeau de paille d'Italie)

Eugene Labiche and Marc Michel's effervescent French farce An Italian Straw Hat was gracefully adapted for the screen by director Ren Clair. Albert Prejean plays a well-meaning fellow who is on the way to his wedding. While en route, Prejean's horse has the bad manners to eat the expensive hat of a lovely young woman. The girl is beside herself, so Prejean gallantly offers to postpone his wedding until he can locate an identical chapeau, thereby setting in motion an endless series of comic misunderstandings. More than one historian has noted that Albert Prejean is made up to look like American two-reel comedian Charley Chase, most of whose "Imagine my embarrassment!" films were constructed pretty much along the same lines as An Italian Straw Hat.