Ladies' Night in a Turkish Bath

LADIES NIGHT IN A Turkish BATH (1928) proves that you don't have to have a major comedian in a film to make a funny comedy. Jack Mulhall and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams (a dead-ringer for former President George W. Bush) are two construction workers who work on a high-rise building. Jack starts frequenting the "Ma and Pa" lunch-box stand, and his banter with very pretty Dorothy Mackaill is wonderful. Her parents, Jimmy Finlayson and Sylvia Ashton, decide to sell the business and move "uptown" to nicer digs. Their new neighbor immediately takes a shine to Dorothy. Jack and Dorothy get engaged, but they fight frequently over the neighbor's attentions to her.

Dorothy's mother decides to go on a diet, and we all know that when Momma goes on a diet that everybody goes on a diet. This makes hubby Finlayson (and the dog) miserable, as there is nothing good to eat. Fin gets his wife a giant wedding anniversary cake, but of course she can't eat it, so they quarrel.

The men head out to a "gentleman's club" to see a "hoochie coochie" dancer (i.e. stripper), while the ladies retire to a Turkish bath to relax and forget about the insensitive men in their life. The men's club gets raided by the police, so Fin and Mulhall climb in a window of the building next door, which is of course the Turkish bath and is full of naked women wrapped in towels. What follows is a hilarious climax.

The recent UCLA restoration looks very sharp. I saw this at at Cinecon with a large audience that roared with laughter throughout.