- Highly ludicrous burlesque on the spy melodrama current in the present day, is "An International Sneak," Mack Sennett's latest contribution to the Paramount comedy program. Chester Conklin is featured as Walrus, the agent of "His Imperial Majesty," and his mission is to blow up a munition works. Naturally he bungles the job because a girl detective proves very much smarter than he is. Every scene of the picture is treated with an extremely clever sense of burlesque, even to the manner of deriving suspense while the clock slowly ticks away the minutes to the fatal hour of the explosion. Conklin's ability in this line has never been doubted, and in these two reels gives a thoroughly humorous performance. Ethel Teare is a charming detective, while Billy Armstrong is the terribly mistreated hero.—Motion Picture News, December 22, 1917
- It is Conklin's job to get the formula for a high explosive which the Powder King is using. If he can't get it, he is to blow up the entire munition plant. Ethel learns all this when she goes through Conklin's grip. Her job is to "get the goods" on Conklin. Ethel is such a beautiful girl that Conklin tells her everything and even tips her off to a meeting of International Sneaks of his own caliber and Ethel, in order to get the goods on them, puts on boys' clothes. Comes then a series of mix-ups in the middle of which Conklin saves the Powder King's daughter from drowning and becomes a hero. The affair got Conklin the inside track to the powder mill and the coveted formula, but it also made a strong enemy of Billy, Lillian's sweetheart. It's an open question whether Conklin or Billy was the biggest bonehead. Between them they distanced all competitors for the ivory championship, it culminating in the mutual possession of a bomb with a lighted fuse. The things they did to get rid of that sizzling bomb, and the unique manner in which said bomb refused to be shunted to a place of safety are one of the laugh climaxes of the picture. There is a whirlwind finish that would spoil in the telling, but this does not come until after a sequence of the most surprising and stirring adventures imaginable.—Moving Picture World synopsis
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