Silent movies - The Rat's Knuckles

After last week I really needed something short and of course it made sense to choose a film with Martha Sleeper in it after my post about her.
It's "The Rat's Knuckles" from 1925 with Charley Chase.

The plot (spoiler alert).

Jimmy Jump has invented the perfect humane mouse trap.
When he visits his girlfriend "Flirty" McFickle - who doesn't have that nickname for nothing -

"Do you mean to say I flirt with customers?"

at the soda fountain to paint a picture of the millions they'll have and how famous they'll be thanks to his invention, a mouse runs across the floor. Jimmy fetches his trap, but by the time he's back, the mouse is already gone.

Professor James Jump of "Ratus Trapus" fame.

Gotta show whom they owe all that new money to!

"There's the Prince -"
"-- Morning, Ed -- "
To Flirty "-- He's a great man, too."

So he visits an invention financier instead who's so annoyed that he almost shoots at Jimmy, but then chooses to leave him sitting there while he goes off to lunch. When Jimmy picks Flirty up from work and has to tell her he hasn't sold his invention, she goes off with a customer she has flirted with before.
Jimmy goes to the docks to put an end to it all, but gets held back by a big financier who happens to come by and asks him to tell him about his trap.

It turns out that the trap is a jack-in-the-box jumping up when the mouse touches the cheese which "doesn't kill the little mouse, but it makes him so ashamed he never comes back".

Ingenious! 🤪

Too bad. The financier lifts his cane and off into the water Jimmy goes!

"The Rat's Knuckles" is one of eight shorts from the Jimmy Jump series.
Jimmy Jump is the little man who can't get a break.
I watched the film here on YouTube. The channel owner calls himself a "completist freak" meaning he put this together from three different sources! The scenes he added again are how Jimmy "helps" two workmen unloading a piano - right into a open chute - and the car scene when they greet the Prince of Wales.

My favorite scene was of course the fantasy of a grand life revolving completely around the rat, with big sculptures, a rat as a pommel for Jimmy's cane, and of course Flirty's beauty spot.
I also liked the trap, though. Shame on you, mouse or rat, shame! Does that work on humans, too? Asking for a friend.

Not earth-shattering, but a funny little short and the perfect palate cleanser after last week 😉
Also, Martha Sleeper is just so cute! 

Martha Sleeper - From actress to designer

I presented two silent movies with the actress Martha Sleeper here before, "Mum's the Word" and "Sure-Mike!". I liked both of them and I really liked Sleeper (with whom I share the birthday, by the way), so there are more of her films on my list.
In the second post I mentioned her interesting career...s.
I don't know about you, but I'm curious sometimes about what an actress or actor has done after leaving film, and Sleeper's story really surprised me, also as a jewelry artisan.

Sleeper in 1935,
public domain via Wikimedia

Martha Sleeper was born in 1910 (some sources say 1907, but I choose to believe the Lake Bluff History Museum because she was born in Lake Bluff.
Sleeper, who came from a family connected with arts in different ways, started acting in silent movies when she was 13 and was in film until 1936, with one last appearance in "The Bells of St. Mary's" in 1945 as a favor to her former director Leo McCarey.
Unhappy with getting supporting roles as the woman losing her man to the leading lady of the film, she left Hollywood with her husband to go to New York and become a stage actress for many years.
That's also when she turned her hobby of creating jewelry from bakelite, wood, and metal for herself into a lucrative side business.

Ad from "The Birmingham
News", March 26, 1939,
page 43

Martha Sleeper said in an interview with the "Washington Post" in 1941: "In the last war women went wild for exotic hats to add gaiety, but with the present hatless vogue women are now turning to jewelry to give them a lift."

Picture from the article in "Collier's Week"

Her designs were colorful, unusual, and whimsical - matchsticks, bugs and other animals, flowers, masks, fruit, and whatnot - and according to a story published in "Collier's Weekly" in 1938 (which you can find here) 200,000 pieces sold in the first year. A name for them back then was "lapel gadgets" which earned Sleeper the title "Gadget Girl".
Her items are sought after collectibles today and much more expensive than they used to be.

Bracelet and brooch (sold at Doyle Auctions)

If you think the story stops here now, you are wrong.
In 1949, Sleeper and her second husband went on vacation. As part of the cruise, they visited Puerto Rico, fell in love with the island, sold their house over the phone and stayed.
By now, she had enough of designing jewelry, though. So she started her third career as a fashion designer.
She opened a boutique in San Juan - "Martha Sleeper Creates" - where she sold her designs which had been locally produced, dresses, muumuus, blouses, skirts, but also accessories.
Later her designs, which are also collectibles now, were also exported to neighboring islands and the US mainland.

Picture by Jumblelaya Vintage
Clothing Shop

When she retired in 1969, she and her third husband moved to his small plantation outside of Charleston, SC, where she died in 1983.

What a talented and beautiful lady!
I would read her biography in a heartbeat if there was one.
Instead I will have to watch more of her movies (maybe even a talkie 😮) and look round the web for her designs.


Main sources:

1. Deanna Dahlsad: Merry Martha Sleeper Jewelry & Fashions. On: Inherited Values, December 24, 2010
2. Maggie Wilds: Martha Sleeper: Vintage Fashion with Wit & Color. On: Vintage Fashion Guild
3. Jessica Wahl: Miss Martha Sleeper. On: Silence is Platinum, January 5, 2014

Silent movies - Sure-Mike!

After last week's short, the plan had been a longer film again this week, but I kept falling asleep before even making it to the chosen one.
Then my favorite silent movie blogger wrote about a one-reeler - "Sure-Mike!" from 1925.

First, the plot (with spoilers).

Vermuda is a shop girl in a department store. 
Mike who does deliveries with his motorcycle has a crush on her, but she pines for the new manager. When he calls her into his office, she's excited, but he only wants her to deliver some parcels.
Coming back to his office, she's so shocked to see him surrounded by his wife and children that she falls out of a window just to land on Mike's motorcyle! Fate?

I really liked Martha Sleeper in "Mum's the Word", so this sounded like it was just what I needed, and it was.
The film was a fun bit of slapstick and Sleeper was hilarious as Vermuda (what a wonderful name).
We first see her rollerskating trying to make up for being late for work - a whole day!

As you can imagine, the way to work can be difficult
on rollerskates, for example if you catch your hand in
a dog leash and get pulled along the sidewalk
while felling people to the left and right. Luckily,
 she lands on Mike's motorcycle for a ride to work.

 

Sleeper is so good at the physical comedy and the faces she pulls crack me up.
To avoid the wrath of the floorwalker and the new manager, Vermuda manages to get to her counter by riding a zip line for clothes hidden by coats, and she fakes a sales talk by dressing up a mannequin (without legs).

The new manager is one of those guys who put perfume
on their eyebrows, what's not to love about him?
Unfortunately, distracted Vermuda packs up something using
the string of the balloon belonging to the customer's kid.
Yup, the parcel flies off.

No rollerskates for the delivery, but a more than full streetcar leads to more problems. I laughed through the whole scene, from Vermuda trying to find a spot to sit safely holding on to the pants of the men already holding on to the streetcar themselves and accidentally swallowing the coin for the fare to being attacked by a horse from behind.
 

The worst shock, however, is seeing the manager on his wife's lap feeding his baby.
After falling right on Mikes delivery storage box, she asks him to take her home.
She's really not lucky with her commute, though, as she loses Mike halfway without noticing it at first.

Oh no! Vermuda on the road all by herself.

No worries, Mike follows her in a car and tells her to jump into his arms at the corner.

Mike to the rescue!
Looks like he might be the right one after all.

Slapstick in high speed can get overwhelming for me, but not this one. I loved every minute, especially Sleeper, and I can only recommend this short.
I'm really late writing this post, so this time I can't go into her interesting career...s - yes, more than one, and so cool.
But she'll be back on here for sure and I'm looking forward to it!

P.S. By the way, one of Vermuda's catty co-workers is Fay Wray of King Kong fame (the one on the right)!

Sources:

1. The Silent Comedy Watch Party ep. 38 on YouTube (the film starts at 17:28)
2. Fritzi Kramer: Sure-Mike! (1925) - A Silent Film Review. On: Movies Silently, November 9, 2025