Mandarin Mix-Up

1924 film

August 30, 1924 (1924-08-30)

Running time

20 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageSilent (English intertitles)

Mandarin Mix-Up is a 1924 American silent comedy film directed by Scott Pembroke and starring Stan Laurel.^[1]

Plot

Stan is the new baby in the family and is shown in a high chair playing with a ball. His big brother is angry that the baby is throwing food at him and ties him into a laundry bag.

He is taken to a Chinese laundry and the story jumps twenty years. The family has raised him as their son and call him Sum Sap. He has a very long pigtail. He angers a Tong gangster and is in fear of his life. Sap falls in love with a Chinese girl and pursues her in slow motion. He falls into the Buddhist temple and angers the men. A battle begins between the tongs. Stan appears in a police uniform and the street battle stops.

With his uniform on he refuses to pay for a hot dog and is rude to the stall owner. One of the men draws a knife on him. He goes into a costume shop and disguises himself. The gang member tells him how he is going to slit Sum Sap's throat.

Whilst talking to a real policeman someone tries to kill him by dropping a vase on his head. After a few more things are dropped. Lili gives him a pistol and he fires it into the firework shop which explodes.

He marries his Chinese girlfriend Lili (Julie Leonard). Just then, her real parents and want to take her away. A bill poster is handed to him saying that Roger Cresus has left Sun Sap a million dollars because he loved him like a son.