Charlie must rescue his sweetheart, Edna, from an arranged marriage by posing as the Count, the man to whom Edna is betrothed but whom neither she nor her father have ever seen. The film climaxes with a car chase, featuring a Ford automobile, a target of contemporary humor, alongside San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach, and ends with a car plunge into the bay at Fisherman’s Wharf. Impersonation/mistaken identity was a device Chaplin enjoyed.

Among the wonderful bits of comic transposition in the film is a bit of business Chaplin had performed in Fred Karno’s music hall sketch Jimmy the Fearless: Charlie, attempting to slice a bread roll, continues in a spiral cut, turning the roll into a concertina (a rudimentary accordion).