North West Mounted Police 1940

The film opens with a vivid, tongue-in-cheek view of a prison called Alka-Fizz Prison, a playful spoof of Alcatraz. The gate bears the punny sign “No Noose is Good Noose,” a wink at headlines and capital punishment alike. Inside, a crafty convict known simply as The Wolf uses a pencil to sketch a crude door on the wall outside his cell, opens it, and slips free, slipping from the United States into Canada as the chase begins.

Across the border, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police convene at the Mounties’ headquarters in Mounty County. The chief asks for a volunteer to capture the escapee, and Sgt. McPoodle, James Flavin, is effectively drafted when all the others step back, revealing him as the only pursuer. In the Yukon wilderness, The Wolf tramps through the snow and passes a string of Burma-Shave-style signs warning him that he’s being followed by Sgt. McPoodle. He spins around to see the Mountie riding up behind him, and the chase is set in motion with a single clever camera pull that keeps McPoodle popping into view from one place to another.

The pursuit takes on a comic cat-and-mouse rhythm as The Wolf darts from a seemingly empty cabin at the foot of a mountain to a doorway that somehow always reveals McPoodle waiting. Desperate, The Wolf locks doors, only to find McPoodle calmly seated in an armchair, reading a comic strip. The Wolf bursts out and bolts for the slopes, climbing toward a nest high on the summit where a massive egg sits in a barren, windswept crag. When the egg cracks, McPoodle emerges, and The Wolf dives into a lake below, thinking he’s momentarily safe—only to discover McPoodle gliding among the school of fish beneath him.

From there, The Wolf moves from a taxi ride to the airport, and then to a tiny atoll in the middle of the sea, where two rocks protrude from the water. He braces for a final showdown, only to have McPoodle emerge from the smaller rock instead of the larger one. The chase arc jumps into high gear as The Wolf, in a fit of panic, swims toward New York City. He dashes through crowded streets, nearly tumbling off the edge of the frame, and seeks refuge in a movie theater, where a theatrical MGM cartoon moment erupts on screen and McPoodle appears from the film to taunt him again.

Desperate, The Wolf seeks a plastic surgeon to change his face, hoping for a fresh start. A rapid procedure leaves him with a new visage that eerily mirrors McPoodle’s, and his gratitude is cut short when he notices the surgeon’s own face has transformed as well. His attempts to regain control spiral into ever more ridiculous ideas, including an ill-fated plan to feed himself to a lion at the zoo, only to find McPoodle occupying the lion’s interior as well.

The Wolf’s last-ditch efforts lead him to a hotel that somehow doubles as a prison cell, where he braces for the final reckoning and reflects on the absurdity of his situation. As he pieces together the chaotic day, he realizes the pattern of the chase has a peculiar logic, and he voices it to the audience: perhaps there could be more than one McPoodle.

The hallways of this whimsical pursuit finally swell with the chorus of McPoodles, who respond in unison to his quip with a shared, playful inquiry:

What do you think, brother?