Ambassador Alfalfa Doolittle returns to his small town, fielding questions about Washington politics and his adventures. He regales them with stories that may be slightly exaggerated.Ambassador Alfalfa Doolittle returns to his small town, fielding questions about Washington politics and his adventures. He regales them with stories that may be slightly exaggerated.Ambassador Alfalfa Doolittle returns to his small town, fielding questions about Washington politics and his adventures. He regales them with stories that may be slightly exaggerated.
Photos
- The King
- (as Richard Pennell)
- Townsman
- (uncredited)
- Count De Cassarole
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaRetakes were done on May 9th and 10th, 1924, a week after principal photography.
- Quotes
Ambassador Alfalfa Doolittle: [after declining an alcoholic drink and ordering a glass of milk instead, then needing a plausible excuse for choosing such an "un-manly" beverage] What with Prohibition and all, I'm afraid that soon they may outlaw milk back in the States, so I want to enjoy it while I can.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Back to the Future Part III (1990)
As it turned out, the Alfalfa Doolittle trilogy proved to be as much of a mixed bag as Rogers's general output for the Roach Studio: the first short, entitled Going to Congress, is moderately amusing but over-reliant on dialog titles for humor, while the second short (Our Congressman) suffers from weak gags and an anticlimactic ending. The final short A Truthful Liar is the best of the lot, and perhaps the funniest of Will's silent films. This short has a zany tone and some off-the-wall touches that give it the feel of a Sennett comedy, which should come as no surprise, as director Hampton Del Ruth was a Sennett Studio veteran. Del Ruth's tenure at the Roach Studio was relatively brief and marked with problems, but in this instance he brought much-needed energy to the material at hand. If Del Ruth had been in charge of the Alfalfa Doolittle trilogy from the beginning the series probably would have been more fun over all, and might even have been extended further.
When last seen in the second installment, Doolittle has been in Congress long enough to develop an inflated sense of self-importance (he even plays golf), and it's clear he's lost touch with his hometown constituents. At the top of this film we find that more time has passed, and the ex-congressman is now returning home as a private citizen. We learn that he left Congress for an ambassadorship, traveled the world and hobnobbed with royalty. The rest of the film consists of the tales Doolittle tells the home-town folks about his adventures overseas. This flashback premise is a clever idea, because it allows our hero to exaggerate freely; it also allows for cartoon-y gags that may remind some viewers of Million Dollar Legs or the early Marx Brothers comedies. There's a crazed anarchist who pops up repeatedly, a pair of bearded men eating lozenges -- the Smith Brothers, of course -- and a ceremony where dignitaries lay the cornerstone of the new Home for Disabled Tenors. When Doolittle has an audience with the King (who resembles England's George V), he arrives in court wearing his cowboy gear. After he rescues the King from an assassination attempt, Doolittle takes the grateful monarch to a pub where he teaches him to eat hot dogs and play poker. Eventually, we're told, the American ambassador wins the King's crown in a card game.
The exaggerations and absurdities in Doolittle's story build to an amusing climax, topped with a nicely handled fade-out gag. It appears that Will Rogers didn't have a high opinion of the two-reel comedies he made at the Roach Studio, and indeed some of them look like half-hearted efforts, but A Truthful Liar stands out as a lively, off-beat comedy, and a fitting finale to the Alfalfa Doolittle trilogy.
Details
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1