Art Trouble

This is noted as the first filmed role for James Stewart, although he is not listed among the credits of this short film.

James Stewart plays one of two brothers who are ordered by their wealthy parents to go to Paris and become famous artists. They don't want to go to Paris with its atmosphere and beautiful girls and champagne. They prefer to stay in America and take a post-graduate course in trigonometry. So the brothers get a couple of painters - they paint ships not portraits - to go in their place and give them a series of letters to periodically mail back from France to their parents, so they'll think that they are there. But then the painters get tired of mailing these letters back individually and decide to mail them all at the same time, alerting the parents back home that something is up.

The two painters are played by Harry Gribbon and Shemp Howard, after he was ejected from The Three Stooges by Ted Healy. Stewart is only in a couple of scenes, and he was paid 50 dollars for his work. There is lots of filler in this short. There is a segment in the beginning about Gribbon and Howard being painters of the ships on "The Checkered Line" with them painting a ship with checkered paint. In France, there is a segment with a long scene concerning the Apache Dance, where the man throws the woman about during the dance. It goes on too long and is tedious in the end.

I'd recommend this mainly to see Stewart in his very first filmed role, but the rest of the short is pleasant enough. And if you ever wanted to see James Stewart roughed up by one of the Three Stooges, this is your opportunity.