The man who still won’t lie down

A few days ago, I wrote up a little review about the five-DVD release “Ham”: The Lost Magic of Lloyd Hamilton by Looser Than Loose (“Made with pride in New Hampshire, USA”), a company specializing in silent comedy shorts, old-time radio, etc.  When purchasing this set, it was kind of an afterthought because what I really had my eye on was their latest six-DVD collection, Buster Keaton: Educational Two-Reelers.  Now, by “educational” I don’t mean the shorts like the ones found on the Mackinac release Industrial Strength Keaton, but rather the sixteen two-reelers Buster churned for Educational Pictures between 1934 and 1937.

As Leonard Maltin writes in The Great Movie Shorts: “Hollywood has never been a particularly logical place, so it seemed perfectly natural to most people that one of the leading producers of comedy shorts was named Educational Pictures.”  In fact, the studio—founded by Earle W. Hammons in 1919—was originally commissioned to produce shorts for schools, but somehow got sidetracked along the way…so Hammons turned to comedy instead.  In the 1920s, Educational was one of the top mirth makers in the picture business, with product featuring stars like Lloyd Hamilton and Lupino Lane.  By the 1930s, however, the studio lost a bit of its former luster, as Maltin explains:

If one searched for a key word to describe the Educational comedies of the 1930s, the best one might be “cheap.”  Educational films almost always looked cheap, even though they were made in most cases by seasoned veterans.  One problem was the claustrophobia of shooting at the company’s eastern studio in Astoria, Long Island.  In addition, one suspects that the largest chunk of the small budgets went to pay the stars’ salaries, leaving very little for sets, costumes, and technical frills.  Nevertheless, the comedies (which were distributed by 20th Century Fox) always made money, despite the fact that the quality of the material was often downright poor.

“The best of the old comedy favorites…the brightest of the new stars” shouted the ad copy for Educational, and in 1934 new Educational hire Buster Keaton certainly qualified for the former part of that statement.  Keaton’s fortunes had taken a precipitous plunge since his glory days in the silents, and in 1933 was fired by MGM (the studio that seemed heckbent on ruining his career) because of his inability to toe the company line and report for work in the manner dictated by his studio bosses (his pull on the bottle was in full swing by that time, as anyone who’s seen What? No Beer? will testify).  His personal demons made him practically unemployable, but perpetually spiffed or not, Educational proved to be the only studio willing to throw him a lifeline.

“Legend has it that Buster Keaton’s career started sliding downhill in 1930 and never stopped—that his talkie films are unspeakable horrors,” writes Maltin in Movie Shorts.  “To be sure, they are not in the same league as Keaton’s silents, but they show a comic talent very much alive, and, in some cases, they compare favorably to other comedies being made at the same time.”  I’m sure I’ve mentioned in this space that my first exposure to The Great Stone Face was watching his Columbia shorts on television as a little shaver, and though I’m partial to the Columbias I must confess viewing the shorts in this Looser Than Loose collection has made me reconsider my position.  The Educational shorts (many co-directed by Keaton and Charles Lamont) aren’t the slapdash, mechanical efforts supervised by the likes of comedy directors such as Jules White, but are presented at a more leisurely pace that allows Keaton to crib ideas from his past silent shorts.  Having watched all of the Educationals over the past several days, I’m convinced that Buster’s batting average is better than previously noted…though as a devoted fan I’m certainly hip to the fact that I might be a tad prejudiced in this arena.

In the documentary Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow, Keaton’s widow Eleanor divulged that the only Educational two-reeler he had any particular fondness for was Grand Slam Opera (1936), and it’s still my personal favorite—a brisk and funny outing that has Buster competing for a girl’s affections at the same time he’s seeking fame and fortune on a radio show patterned after Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour.  By that same token, Leonard Maltin singles out amusing efforts like The Gold Ghost (1934), Allez Oop (1934), and One Run Elmer (1935) for special attention in Movie Shorts.  I particularly enjoyed a pair of shorts that don’t get the equal amount of attention as those I’ve previously mentioned: Tars and Stripes (1935) provides some excellent opportunities for mirth (including a hilarious running gag in which Buster schemes to be the first in line for chow outside the mess hall) playing a would-be sailor who keeps running afoul of petty officer Vernon Dent (longtime nemesis to the Three Stooges) by getting a little too cozy with Dent’s girlfriend (Dorothea Kent).  Mixed Magic (1936) is another neglected gem; in this one Buster becomes assistant to a jealous magician (Eddie Lambert) and proceeds to make a complete shambles out of the man’s act.

That having been said, there are a goodly amount of clinkers in Buster’s Educational output, including Palooka from Paducah (1935), Jail Bait (1937) and Ditto (1937).  A 1935 two-reeler, The Timid Young Man, is of some historical interest because it marks the only time that the “King of Comedy” (Mack Sennett) worked alongside the Great Stone Face…if only the short hadn’t turned out so “aggressively average,” as my friend Nick would say.  Keaton also kept the spirit of nepotism alive by hiring members of his family (father Joe, mother Myra, sister Louise and brother Harry) to populate the supporting casts: Joe, Myra and Louise appear in Paducah while mom, sis and Harry headline Love Nest on Wheels (1937), an amusing short (Buster’s last—and I realize I’m the minority regarding the laugh quotient on this one) that recycles gags from Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s The Bell Boy (1918) and even reunites him with Arbuckle nephew Al St. John.  Myra and Louise also appeared in the manic Way Up Thar (1935), the two-reeler that served as Mack Sennett’s directorial swan song but introduced Joan Davis to the silver screen (the Sons of the Pioneers are also in this one, including a young Leonard Slye…better known as Roy Rogers).  This delightful short is featured among the ample bonus extras included in this six-DVD collection.

Other extras in the Keaton Educational collection include a 1957 appearance on Circus Time (I’m pretty sure it’s 1957, since Paul Winchell introduces Buster and notes that The Buster Keaton Story will be appearing in theatres soon) and a 1960’s TV sketch with Buster, Lucille Ball (who met Keaton while she was at MGM and became his devoted protégé) and Harvey Korman (as a cop).  There’s also a 1926 one-reeler (a Kodascope cut down) with Educational Pictures star Johnny Arthur—the poor man’s Charley Chase—and if sounds like I’m being a bit snarky about this, the short, Home Cured, is a blueprint for a later effort Chase made for Columbia in 1937, Calling All Doctors.  (Cured is included here because it was directed by William Goodrich—who was none other than Keaton’s mentor, Roscoe Arbuckle.)

When writing about Looser Than Loose’s Lloyd Hamilton set I neglected to mention that there are a few “Easter eggs” present on the discs; most of these are promotional shorts released by the Jam Handy Company in the 1930s and 1940s, and can easily be located on the Internets.  The Keaton set has an amusing one I hadn’t seen previously, a 1938 one-reeler for Chevrolet called Back of the Mike, in which a young boy listens intently to a radio Western serial, with the action switching back-and-forth from a dramatization of the proceedings (what’s taking place in the boy’s mind) to the same play being performed in a broadcast studio.  It’s fun to watch—and highly recommended to old-time radio fans—though I seriously doubt that a western serial program would require the big honkin’ studio used in this short (not to mention the hefty cast and crew to do voices and sound effects).  If that’s not enough to inspire you to invest in this collection, there’s always a public domain copy of Hollywood Steps Out (1941), a Warner Brothers outing that features a cartoon version of the Three Stooges doing their eye-poking and slapping to a conga beat…and an animated Clark Gable reminding us: “Don’t go away, folks—this oughta be good.”  (I just wanted to see if there were any Night Flight fans in the audience.)

“…that suave comedian, dry humorist, and famous master of ceremonies…”

The first broadcast in RS’ Ultimate Jack Benny Collection is, in fact, Jack Benny’s first regular broadcast—the May 2, 1932 debut of The Canada Dry Program. (Benny’s premiere radio appearance was on a March 19, 1932 broadcast of Ed Sullivan’s Broadway’s Greatest Thrills.) Benny fans will certainly be surprised, puzzled and amused listening to this first show, since Benny presides as “master of ceremonies” over what is essentially a musical showcase featuring the talents of maestro George Olsen, his orchestra, and his wife Ethel Shutta (pronounced shu-tay). Benny’s remarks after being introduced by show announcer Ed Thorgensen are particularly memorable:

JACK: Uh, thank you, Mr. Thorgensen—that’s pretty good from a man who doesn’t even know me…ladies and gentlemen, this is Jack Benny talking…and making my first appearance on the air professionally…by that I mean, I’m finally getting paid—which, of course, will be a great relief to my creditors…

There are seven musical numbers on this program, among them I Beg Your Pardon, Mademoiselle and I Found a Million-Dollar-Baby in a Five-and-Ten-Cent Store. They pretty much crowd out the comedy, though Jack rises to the occasion when he needs to make sure the program keeps moving along:

JACK: That was I Love a Parade, ladies and gentlemen…the kind of a number that grips and thrills you…gives you that great feeling of patriotism, and makes you glad that you’re an American…personally, it didn’t bother me very much because I took a nap while the boys were playing it…

Even though Benny’s role on the broadcast is fairly limited, there are a few brief flashes of the comic conventions that would later hallmark Benny’s future shows. Jack’s predilection for ribbing the sponsor is present and accounted for; he describes Canada Dry’s Ginger Ale as “you drink it, like it, and don’t wanna hear about it.” After later reading a bit of commercial copy he cracks: “Gee, I thought I did that pretty swell for a new salesman—I suppose nobody will drink it now.” (The Canada Dry company was not amused by Benny’s levity in pushing its product, which is why they let him go in January 1933.) Jack also introduces his first “cheap” joke, though it is not directed at himself but rather at maestro Olsen, commenting that “he paid the check with a five-dollar bill that was in his pocket so long that Lincoln’s eyes were bloodshot.”

The Canada Dry Program was a twice-weekly (Mondays and Wednesdays) half-hour head over the Blue network until October 26, 1932; it then moved to CBS (Sundays and Thursdays) on October 30 and run until the comedian’s novel approach to the commercials got him yanked on January 26, 1933. Fortunately for Benny, he had started to receive a lot of positive press as a comic on the rise, and he was hired by Chevrolet in March 1933 to headline a program on NBC. Sadye Marks—a.k.a. Mrs. Jack Benny—joined him on The Chevrolet Program, becoming the first member of Jack’s classic “stooge” ensemble. She had made her debut on the Canada Dry Program on August 3, 1932 as Mary Livingstone, a young Benny fan from Plainfield, NJ—and later would change her name legally to that of her character.

Chevrolet gave Benny his walking papers on—ironically—April 1, 1934 (the sponsor apparently wasn’t crazy about Benny and writer Harry Cohn expanding the comedy on the program at the expense of the music), and the comedian joined forces with General Tire for a Friday night program that introduced the second member of Benny’s longtime cast, announcer Don Wilson. Jack then began his eight-year association with Jell-O on October 14, 1934, and the second program on the Radio Spirits box set introduces yet another Benny cast member, bandleader-comedian Phil Harris, from October 4, 1936.

Harris was a headliner at the famed Coconut Grove, a popular Hollywood nightspot, when an RKO comedy three-reeler, So This is Harris!, brought him to the attention of both Jack and George Burns. (Burns was planning to sign Phil to his program, but Benny beat him to the punch.) Although Harris was supposedly Jack’s orchestra leader, he was in reality nothing more than window-dressing (he was hired for his personality more than his musicianship) since the show’s musical direction was really handled by Mahlon Merrick. The October 4, 1936 show is astonishing to listen to, simply because the trademark Harris persona—that of the brash, “incomparable vulgarian”—is surprisingly subdued:

JACK: Say, Phil—you don’t mind if I describe you to our listeners, do you? After all, they will be interested…
PHIL: No, but…uh…well, don’t build me up too much…

My jaw dropped after hearing this exchange—this is a guy who couldn’t pass a mirror without drawling “Ohhhhhhhh you dawg!!!” I have since heard that Benny’s writers created the Harris personality—the swaggering, vain playboy with a fondness for fast clothes, fast cars and fast liquor—after noticing that it was hard to distinguish Jack’s voice from Phil’s. Toward the end of the show, as Don Wilson does the final Jell-O commercial, I laughed when I heard a snatch of “Rose Room”—a musical number that would later become the theme of Phil Harris’ later 1948-54 sitcom with wife Alice Faye.

I was also fascinated by Mary Livingstone’s persona in this broadcast, which borders on a Gracie Allen-like screwball quality. As Mary later explained:

When I first went on radio, the character I portrayed was that of a dumb girl. But when Kenny [Baker] came along, the writers made him dumb, too. It didn’t take Jack long to discover that two dopes weren’t as funny as one. That’s when I became Jack’s smart-aleck girlfriend.

Tomorrow: Jack feuds with comedian Fred Allen, and is introduced to “Rochester.”

“Oh, they cut down the old pine tree…”

The Bashful Bachelor (1942) was the second of six Lum and Abner feature films released by RKO Pictures from 1940-46, and after watching it last night, I must admit that it’s the best of the ones I’ve seen so far (this opinion is subject to change, of course). It definitely comes a lot closer to capturing the feel of the radio series than the previous Dreaming Out Loud (1940), due no doubt to the larger contribution of creators Chester Lauck and Norris Goff (they are given story credit on the film).

The film features several plot threads: one involves Lum (Lauck) attempting to woo his girlfriend Geraldine (ZaSu Pitts) by thinking up various scenarios in which to portray himself as a hero, and the other concerns a horse, Skyrocket, Abner (Goff) acquires (by “swapping” with some gypsies) that the two men later enter in the County Sweepstakes horse race. A third plot details Lum giving Abner a note of a marriage proposal to present to Geraldine, but Abner—who’s wearing a cheap pair of glasses for which he’s also “swapped”—hands the note instead to the “Widder” Abernathy (Constance Purdy), who threatens to sue the hapless Lum for breach of promise if he backs out of the wedding. I won’t give away the ending, of course, but if you’re familiar with similar story threads from Amos ‘n’ Andy and The Great Gildersleeve the conclusion won’t surprise you much. (The bit where Lum, Abner and Cedric experience problems after buying eyeglasses from a vendor probably originated from a similar story arc on the radio show as well.)

Two of my favorite characters from the radio show are featured in this movie—Cedric Weehunt and Squire Skimp. Cedric was the resident Clem Kadiddlehopper/Mortimer Snerd of Pine Ridge, and though he was voiced in the radio version by Lauck, he’s portrayed here by the great comic character actor Grady Sutton. I have to admit, though, I was a little disoriented hearing Sutton imitate Lauck doing Cedric; Sutton usually speaks in a much higher and softer hick-oriented tone as witnessed by his appearances in the Hal Roach Boy Friends two-reelers (High Gear, Air-Tight) and classic W.C. Fields films like The Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935) and The Bank Dick (1940). But that aside, he makes a perfect Cedric, and he would appear twice more in the role in the L&A features Goin’ to Town (1944) and Partners in Time (1946). Actor Oscar O’Shea essays the role of Skimp, Pine Ridge’s resident con man/huckster, a part voiced by “Tuffy” Goff on the radio show—while I think O’Shea does a fair job (he encores in the next L&A movie, Two Weeks to Live) he’s not quite capable of capturing the role as well as Goff did in the radio version. There’s also a brief appearance from Uncle Henry Lunsford, but the IMDb does not credit the actor playing him.

Other standout performers include Louise Currie as Skimp’s niece Marjorie (Currie is probably best-remembered as a heroine in classic serials like The Adventures of Captain Marvel and The Masked Marvel), Irving Bacon (previously seen in Dreaming Out Loud), and longtime Jack Benny Show stooge Benny Rubin as the eyeglasses pitch man. The direction is by Malcolm St. Clair (who would encore with Two Weeks to Live), an accomplished comedy film director who once worked at the Mack Sennett studios during the silent era and later went on to direct several of the Stan Laurel-Oliver Hardy 1940s features at 20th Century-Fox. I was sort of intrigued in that ZaSu Pitts (Geraldine) is presented as a love interest for Lum in this film, but on the radio show (in the 1949-50 season) she was used for more comic effect, with Lum fending off her constant attempts to march him down the aisle. I was also pleased with the transfer of this film to DVD; although it’s a beat-up public domain copy, it’s still in better shape than the previous Dreaming Out Loud. If you’re a Lum and Abner fan like me, I guarantee you will enjoy it.

“Aye grannies, Abner…I b’lieve that’s our ring…”

I recently ordered a pair of DVDs from Critic’s Choice Video and received them in the mail yesterday—Lum and Abner Double Features #1 and #2. #1 contains the first two films starring the boys from Pine Ridge, Dreaming Out Loud (1940) and The Bashful Bachelor (1942), while #2 has Two Weeks to Live and So This is Washington, both from 1943. Of these four films, I’ve only seen one (Washington), so I put the first one on out of curiosity.

The running time of the original release of Dreaming Out Loud is apparently 81 minutes, but the version on the DVD clocks in at 1:05, which probably explains why I had difficulty following the story—there are more than a few continuity jumps present. The plot involves Lum and Abner’s attempts to obtain a mobile first-aid unit for the people of Pine Ridge after the town doctor suffers a debilitating stroke which leaves him wheelchair-bound. There’s also two subplots, one of which involves the reformation of the town drunkard after his daughter is hit and killed by a speeding car, the other being a romance between the town doctor’s son (also an MD) and the postmistress (played by lovely Francis Langford, who sings the title tune).

This movie really wasn’t any great shakes, but since I’m such a big L&A fan I definitely enjoyed it. Of the familiar characters from the show, only Caleb Weehunt is present and accounted for, played by veteran character actor Robert “Bob” McKenzie (a frequent supporting player in many of Andy Clyde’s Columbia two-reelers, like Love Comes to Mooneyville and Stuck in the Sticks). Phil Harris has an all-too brief appearance as a salesman who cons the Jot ‘Em Down Store proprietors into buying some bath salts, and there are also fine performances from the likes of Frank Craven, Clara Blandick, and Irving Bacon.

The only disappointment I had with this DVD is that it says “digitally restored” on the cover when that is clearly not the case. Why do people think that if you just stick an old movie on a DVD it automatically qualifies that title as being “restored”? Ish.

"Fred C. Dobbs don't say nothin' he don't mean..."

If I may be allowed to stray off the path of old-time radio for just a second, I received my 2-DVD copy of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in the mail today.

I've really been impressed with some of the films that Warner Video has been releasing to DVD as of late, because they've been doing a bang-up job with the packaging. This DVD set showcases Sierra Madre in sort of "A Night at the Movies" format -- you start off with a theatrical trailer (in this case, Bogart's Key Largo), a newsreel, a comedy short (the delightful So You Want to Be a Detective starring George Hanlon as Joe McDoakes), a cartoon (Bugs Bunny in Hot Cross Bunny), and then the main feature. I have been preaching for years (and can provide affidavits—from friends and fellow classic movie buffs who are sick and tired of hearing me bitching about it—to back me up) that this sort of thing can and should be presented on DVD; I'm just glad that Warner Video has gotten on the stick.

Also included with the DVDs are a documentary on John Huston, Sierra Madre's director (narrated by Robert Mitchum), a documentary on the making of the film, a trailer gallery of other Bogart films, a classic cartoon (one of my favorite Bugs) 8 Ball Bunny, photos, storyboards, and publicity materials galleries. The pizza de resistance for OTR fans is that the discs include the Lux Radio Theatre broadcast from April 18, 1949 of Sierra Madre with Bogart and Walter Huston recreating their screen roles.

May I also just take a few moments to say "Yowsah!"