It's a Fanny Friday!

Rarely has there been a wackier race

Ker-Choo (1933)
Starring: Bonnie Poe and Gus Wicke

Director: Dave Fleischer

Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

It's the Grand Prix, cartoon-style, with all the craziness you'd expect!

"Ker-Choo" is one of those cartoons where almost anything I might say about it will ruin the fun of watching it for the first time. While it remains funny if you watch it more than once, the biggest enjoyment will come from watching the race (as well as the cartoon animals watching it in the stands) for the first time; the wacky bizarreness of it all will bring joy to even the grumpiest soul!

This is one of the Betty Boop-headlined cartoons where the entire gang is here -- with Bimbo and KoKo the Clown being among the drivers competing against Betty -- and each gets their moment to shine. In fact, I think Bimbo and KoKo between them deliver two of the funniest gags in the film, with KoKo even turning what might have just been a simple transition scene into a moment of hilarity.

While there are many reasons I think you'll enjoy this cartoon if you're into Pre-Code Era animation, the most important one is the unique place it has cinematic history: It was the first tale (and perhaps the only tale so far) of a race being won through germ warfare! Further, this cartoon may also be the true origin of "twerking"!

One word of warning: The race music may get stuck in your head for a day or so after watching this!

Plaaaay ball!

Today, Major League Baseball starts its 2023 season. We're celebrating the return of America's Pastime with Julie Newmar... and weirdness in a cornfield! (We're not sure if it's the Field of Dreams we've heard so much about, but it would explain a lot if it is.)

 
 

 
 

 
If you want to learn more about baseball, we've compiled everything we know about the game into this handy booklet. All proceeds go to support our coffee habits, although if Julie Newmar showed up wanting to go to a ballgame, we'd spend that money on tickets!

The Avengers: The Thirteenth Hole

The Thirteenth Hole (1966)
Starring: Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg, Patrick Allen, Victor Maddern, and Francis Matthews
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When a government agent is murdered, John Steed (Mcnee) and Emma Peel (Rigg) are charged with bringing the guilty parties to justice. Their investigation leads them to an exclusive golf club where a traitor is passing state secrets to the Soviets.

"The Thirteenth Hole" is one of the weaker episodes in Season Four, if not the weakest. The problems are many and severe, and they all originate with the sloppy script.

First, the scheme of the bad guys is complex to the point of ridiculousness. Although I sit down expecting an over-the-top espionage or criminal conspiracy yarn that sometimes is only believable or sensible in the pulp-fictiony, cartoonish universe in which the Avengers exist, what I got in this episode was so over the top that it didn't even work as a spoof of the 1960s spy movies where bad guys had elaborate secret hideouts in the weirdest places. Maybe I could have been more forgiving if the script had been better.

Second. something needed better editing here, be it the script or the final product. The story just doesn't hold together, even by the sometimes fast-and-loose logical standards of "The Avengers". This is mostly because characters who seem significant are introduced, only to vanish without further development or explanation, but it occurs to me that maybe that wouldn't have bothered me so much if the characters that do stick around were more interesting. No one seems particularly menacing or amusing... even some comedic antics by Steed on the golf course fall flat.

One saving grace of the episode is that director Roy Ward Baker kept things moving as quickly as possible--perhaps a little too quickly, as touch on above--but that still doesn't make up for the lameness of the characters and the writing in general. Second, there's a gun that fires golf balls' I really like this idea, and it was perfect for causing "accidental deaths" on a golf course. (Well, except for when the dimwitted bad guys star shooting people with it after the course is closed and in the middle of the night.)

All in all, a disappointing outing for the Avengers.... but they can't all be good when you're on the grueling schedule of episodic television.

'An All-American Toothache' is agreeable nonsense

An All American Toothache (1936)
Starring: Thelma Todd, Patsy Kelly, Mickey Daniels, Johnny Arthur, and Duke York
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Thelma (Todd) tricks her co-worker Patsy (Kelly) into having her wisdom tooth pulled by an incompetent dental student (Daniels) who also happens to be the star player of the local college football team--but who will be barred from the big game if he doesn't show himself proficient in his field of study.

"An All-American Toothache" is one of the better films that Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly made together. It's not the funniest, it's not the sweetest, nor is it the cleverest... but it is perhaps the best-structured and tone-consistent of them all. It delivers a complete story--with a beginning, a middle, and end--and while that story is complete nonsense, it is steeped in the nonsense from beginning to end, embraces the nonsense, and the characters even say "yeah, this makes no sense, but let's go with it!"

The main cast all have their moment in the spotlight, and they all play well with and off each other. Thelma Todd is once again relegated mostly to the role of "straight man" while Patsy Kelly gets to play the fool, but there isn't the sense of underlying contempt from Todd toward Kelly's character that tainted other films. This picture also benefits from the fact that instead of featuring several ill-conceived, badly rehearsed slapstick routines--something that plagued the Todd-headlined films even when she was teamed with ZaSu Pitts in the early stages of the series. Instead, it contains one single all-out brawl between dental students and the football team, with Thelma, Patsy, and a professor caught up in the melee.

"An All-American Toothache" would be the last film Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly would make together. Todd's life was tragically cut short in December of 1935, and it wasn't released until after her demise. It's also the very last film Todd can be considered appearing in. She had a large role in the Laurel & Hardy feature film "The Bohemian Girl", but producer Roach had her scenes cut and reshot because of her death. (If he had been able to foresee the morbid obsession with Todd's mysterious passing that continues to the very day, he might have left the film as it was.)

'Palooka' is barely ring-worthy

Palooka (1934) (aka "Joe Palooka")
Starring: Jimmy Durante, Stuart Erwin, Lupe Velez, Marjorie Rambeau, William Cagney, Tom Dugan, Mary Carlisle, Robert Armstrong. and Thelma Todd
Director: Benjamin Stoloff
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Joe Palooka (Erwin), the goodhearted and terminally naive son of a legendary, retired boxer (Armstrong) is catapulted to the top of the boxing world through happenstance and the shenanigans of his shady manager and promoter, Knobby Walsh (Durante). When a sexy vamp (Velez) tempts him to party instead of train, and the true champion he defeated more through luck than skill (Cagney) engineers a rematch, things start to look pretty grim for Joe...

During the 1930s and 1940s, the "Joe Palooka" newspaper strip grew to become the most popular in the U.S. Debuting in April of 1930, it ran for almost 55 years with the final installment seeing print in November of 1984. There were several film adaptations made of the strip, of which this was the first, so it's fitting that it's an "origin tale".

Sadly, Joe Palooka (affably played by Stuart Erwin) is almost crowded out of his own movie by his manager Knobby Walsh (obnoxiously played by Jimmy Durante). All in all, this film is more a vehicle for Durante than anything else, even to the point where he even gets to ruin the film's ending with one last, incredibly lame gag.

I confess that it's a mystery to me that Durante had a long career headlining anything. He's funny in small doses, but when he gets as much screentime as he does here, he gets very, very tiresome. His dominance of this picture turns it from what could have been a pleasant little sports picture into a grating festival of pain where I found myself rooting for the "villains" (prime among them being William Cagney's Al McSwatt, and Lupe Velez's slutty, gold-digging boxing groupie) just so I could enjoy some illusion of justice being served for Durante's crimes against humanity in this picture.

As for the rest of the cast, they're all pleasant and fun to watch. The aforementioned Stuart Erwin is likable as the title character, while William Cagney is one of the more charming bad guys you're ever likely to come across in a film. One the feminine front, Marjorie Rambeau is great as Joe Palooka's tough-as-nails retired showgirl mother, while Lupe Velez is fun, as well as getting some great lines, as the career-wrecking temptress. (Guys in the audience will also appreciate a couple of gowns Velez wears that would be falling off her if not for double-sided tape. Velez obviously didn't appreciate, or perhaps trust, one of the dresses, since she was constantly figiting with it.)

Robert Armstrong and Thelma Todd have small, but crucial, roles in the film (as Joe Palooka's father and the hussy who broke up his parents' marriage), and they deliver their usual strong performances. In fact, I liked Todd so much in her small role that I wish she and Velez could have swapped parts and characters. (This is probably just a reflection of my affection for Todd as a performer, as well as my unfamiliarity with the "Palooka" comic strip.)

"Palooka" is not a film I think you should go out of your way for, unless you're a Jimmy Durante fan. It may be entertaining if you have fond memories of the comic strip, or if perhaps you simply can't get enough of sports-themed movies, but the overwhelming presence of Durante taints those aspects of the film... and there are better movies about the smalltown-boy-does-good-in-sports that are more worthy of your time.

'Over the Fence' is silent near-perfection!

Over the Fence (1917)
Starring: Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, Harry Pollard, and Bud Jamison
Directors: Harold Lloyd and J. Farrell MacDonald
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

When his coworker (Pollard) sneakily grabs both his tickets and date (Daniels) to the ballgame, Harold (Lloyd) ends up on the field and playing for the home team after he is mistaken for a late-arriving star player.

"Over the Fence" absolutely hilarious, both as a romantic comedy and a sports comedy. It is perfectly paced--there is literally not a second wasted in the film--and every joke and gag lands solidly. With this film, I think I finally see why Harold Lloyd has gained the reputation of portraying an Everyman sort of character in his films, as he doesn't go out of his way to be jerk, and I think everyone who's been on a date that goes sideways can relate to some of the goin-ons here. (I've seen a couple references that imply the version I watched is a shortened one. I don't know how accurate those comments are, but if I did view an edited version of the film, I want to praise the editor as strongly as the creators and actors in the original film.)

Harold Lloyd, Bebe Daniels, and Harry Pollard are all great in the film, with Lloyd and Daniels giving especially good performances. Daniels, once again, impressed me with her range of acting ability. She seems to have been able to play any type of female character the script called for, unlike her male co-stars which mostly seemed to have a type that they stuck to.

That last statement above isn't entirely fair to Harold Lloyd. I have mentioned previously that there are a number of these Lloyd/Daniels/Pollard shorts that I haven't bothered writing about, because I so disliked the main character as portrayed by Lloyd. Reportedly, with this film, Lloyd reinvented his screen persona, leaving behind the rotten troublemaker that has so annoyed me and moving toward a more sympathetic figure. Looking back, I can see the change--the films I couldn't stand tend to be ones where he hasn't worn glasses but instead slightly exaggerated make-up and odd clothes, while the ones that I like he is wearing glasses. That was Lloyd's signal to himself and his audience that his screen character was not different.

The only, minor complaint I have with "Over the Fence" is that Harry Pollard is in exaggerated, clownish make-up. I realize that this film marks a transition from the earlier films, but it seems an odd choice that Pollard was the only character in the film with such clownish make-up on. It could also be that in the century that has passed since this film was released has made a significance to Pollard's exaggerated make-up fade to the point where I just don't understand it.

"Over the Fence" is just five minutes long, and I strongly encourage you to take the time to check it out; it could just be the most entertaining minutes of your day. I have even made it easy for you, by embedding it below--via YouTube and the Christopher Bird Collection.

'Catch-As-Catch-Can' is a shaky start for the Todd/Pitts comedy series

Catch-As-Catch-Can (1931)
Starring: ZaSu Pitts, Thelma Todd, Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams, Al Cooke, Eddie Dillon, and Reed Howes
Director: Marshall Neilan
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When ZaSu (Pitts) and a professional wrestler (Williams) bond over their shared backgrounds as country folk, Thelma (Todd) and his manager (Howes) move to turn the bond into romance. When the ladies attend his big match to inspire him to fight, there's as much action in the audience as in the ring.

"Catch-As-Catch-Can" was the first true installment in the series of films that producer Hal Roach intended to use as a vehicle to create a female comedy team with the box-office might of Laurel & Hardy. While watching it, a thought kept popping into my head: There were better films later in the series, and Thelma Todd had enjoyed better vehicles in the Charley Chase films.

This isn't a bad film... but it's not exactly good either. It's nicely paced, all the actors do good jobs bringing to life a cast of pleasant and likable characters, but it's a little light on comedy. In fact, the first five-ten minutes of the film, which spends time setting up the two co-workers and roommates who are ostensibly the focus of the film, offer only a few mild chuckles... unless one thinks that a pair of home sick small-towners in the big city are funny just for being small-towners in the big city? The laughs don't even come from the main characters, but are instead generated by a drunk (Al Cooke) who first causes difficulties for Thelma and ZaSu at work, and then later at the wrestling match.

The fact the drunk is the source of comedy is sort of an early warning for what occurs in the second half of the movie, when the action movies to the sports arena. Technically, it's all extremely well-staged and filmed, and, as mentioned above, the actors are all great, but there are so many bit- and secondary players doing comedy routines that it feels like the main characters are almost being crowded out of their own picture. This sense is strengthened by the fact that those secondary players are also the ones who deliver most of the laughs.

Maybe my problem with the film is that the main characters get to mostly remain genteel and emerge from the evening's activities with their dignity mostly intact (even if poor ZaSu will need a hat)? This is not something I'm used to in these Hal Roach short films, especially when it comes to Thelma Todd. Todd usually manages to keep projecting poise and dignity even while her character is being subjected to, or taking part in, the most ridiculous slapstick situations. Even in the films where Todd is the "straight-woman", she usually gets to show off that remarkable ability to some degree.

"Catch-As-Catch Can" is a pleasant enough film, although it's an inauspicious beginning for Pitts' and Todd's run together. Since I intend to watch and review all of the films they were teamed for, I hope that this one is the exception rather than the rule. (I know that they made better films together than this one, since I've watched and reviewed a few of them already; this is the weakest of their 17 films together that I've seem so far.)

'All Teed Up' brings chaos to the golf course

All Teed Up (1930)
Starring: Charlie Chase, Thelma Todd, Dale Henderson, Carl Stockdale, and Tennen Holz
Director: James Horne
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A socially inept banker (Chase) decides to take up golf. A chance encounter, and romantic chemistry, with a young woman (Todd) gets him invited to play on the course of an exclusive private club.

"All Teed Up" is a social comedy that uses golf as its source of humor. When it was made, the sport of golf had transformed from something played by an elite few to a national craze, and everyone from the struggling middle class on up were picking up clubs and knocking balls around. Charley Chase's character seems to be conceived to be a caricature of an average white collar worker hoping to be part of the new Big Thing even if he knows nothing about it. The three men he plays against, and tries to befriend in his inept and highly annoying way, are also caricatures of typical golfers, and they grow so frustrated that this clueless newbie is beating them that they start cheating. Despite the chaos he ends up causing, Chase's character is so guileless that viewers can't help but always be on his side as the film unfolds. Although some of the sequences during the golf game go on for a little too long and become repetitive, they never get boring because Chase's character is so likable. Heck, he's so likeable that you'll find yourself saying "good job" as he finally snaps and throws a temper tantrum (and yes... he does swear to a degree that might give the film a PG rating!)

One of the things that made this film very interesting was the scenes featuring Thelma Todd at the beginning and the end. Although Todd doesn't do much other than react to Chase being goofy, it's a clear demonstration of how well the two played off each other. Her appearance in this film is also a clear example of how she could light up the screen by just being present.

"All Teed Up" is one of several films where Chase and Todd are teamed up. Producer Hal Roach was so pleased with Todd's performance that by 1931 he had given her a comedy series of her own where she was one-half of a female Laurel & Hardy or Wheeler & Woosley team, first with veteran comedienne Zasu Pitts and later Patsy Kelly as her co-stars. Most of Todd's appearances with Chase are included among the 17 films in the Charley Chase at Hal Roach: The Talkies, Volume One set. I'll be reviewing more of these shorts as The Year of the Hot Toddy continues! 

'Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man' is a flawed film but still lots of fun

Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)
Starring: Lou Costello, Bud Abbott, Arthur Franz, William Frawley, Nancy Guild, Gavin Muir, Adele Jurgens, Sheldon Leonard, Paul Maxey, John Day, and Syd Saylor
Director: Charles Lamont
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Tommy (Franz), a professional boxer framed for murder by a mobster (Leonard), hides from the police by using an invisibility serum. He teams up with a pair of rookie private detectives (Abbott and Costello) in a desperate gambit to prove his innocence.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Abbott & Costello made a series of comedies that incorporated Universal's classic monsters from the 1930s, like Dracula, the Mummy, Frankenstein's Monster, and, the Invisible Man. Universal had revived the properties in a series of mostly serious sequels, several of which were crossovers with the Larry Talbot, the Wolfman, who encountered Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster while searching for a cure to his condition. (Larry Talbot's character was itself a revival of a 1930s horror character, the Wolfman of London, but it been the success of the other Universal horror films, so it was "rebooted" rather than being subject to sequels.)

Unlike some of their monster comedies, "Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man" is established as a true sequel to previous films in the series with references to the origins of the invisibility serum. For viewers familiar with "The Invisible Man" (1930) or its sequels ("The Invisible Man Returns" and "The Invisible Agent"), this tie-in lends a sense of urgency as the longer a person has the invisibility serum in their bloodstream, the more likely it is that he or she will be driven insane by it.

Unfortunately, that sense of urgency never becomes what it should be, because Tommy, our invisible man wanting to prove his innocence comes across as a total jerk and more than just a little crazy from the moment he is first introduced. There is literally not a moment where he isn't rude and abrasive to everyone he interacts with. Even in scenes where he is interacting with his girlfriend and the scientist who are risking imprisonment themselves to help him--scenes where there was an opportunity to make him more sympathetic--he is so obnoxious and paranoid that one wonders why the girlfriend even wants to be around him. (There are also a couple of plotting issues--big, gaping holes in the story that leads one to wonder if a scene or two were cut... because it's hard to imagine that any script could be so sloppily written and no one noticed as the film was being made.)

Of course the drama of whether the wrongfully accused man gets cleared of murder before the serum drives him insane or not is basically just an excuse to get us from comedy bit to comedy bit. Most of the routines in the film revolve around characters reacting to seeing--or rather NOT seeing--the invisible man, or boxing gags. The former gets a little old, with the callbacks later in the film being more tiresome than funny (although the spin-off gag involving hypnotism and half the officers and support staff at a police precinct is one of the film's comedic highlights). The latter, however, keeps getting funnier and more involved as the film unfolds, with Costello cartoonishly throwing punches that are actually being landed by the invisible pro-boxer--in a bar fight, in a boxing gym, and ultimately in a the boxing ring. Costello gets to to the physical comedy and pratfalls that he so excelled at, and he does it brilliantly. Meanwhile, Abbott is also very funny as a fundamentally self-centered and greedy huckster who wold probably sell out his own mother for a buck... but he is a charming rogue and you can't help but like him even while thinking he's being a bastard.

While this isn't the strongest of Abbott & Costello's efforts, it has enough going for it that I am giving it a very high Six rating. It might have been a low Seven if the filmmakers hadn't decided to end it on gag that's nonsensical and completely illogical and out-of-step with the rest of the movie. While the supposedly romantic lead being an unlikely jerk hurt the film, it's final 30 or so seconds nearly torpedoed it the material is so bad.

'Hit the Ice' has Bud & Lou at their finest

Hit the Ice (1943)
Starring: Lou Costello, Bud Abbott, Ginny Sims, Patric Knowles, Sheldon Leonard, Elyse Knox, Mark Lawrence, Joe Sawyer, and Johnny Long
Director: Charles Lamont and Erle C. Kenton
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A pair of photographers (Abbott & Costello) accidentally become entangled in a bank heist and are mistaken for the robbers. As they try to clear their names, the actual thieves want to tie up loose ends by eliminating them when they cross paths again at a ski resort in Sun Valley.

"Hit the Ice" is a solid Abbott & Costello film. Almost every routine is perfect from set-up through execution, the plot that carries us from gag to gag is just enough to keep things moving, with the schemes of the villains providing suspense and connecting the various characters to each other as the paper thin story unfolds. The film is further lifted by the fact that, unlike in several other films that Abbott & Costello made together, their characters are written in such a way that viewers can believe that they're friends, because Abbott isn't as cruel and vicious toward Costello as his characters sometimes are. In fact, this may be one of the most cheerful A&C movies, because sympathetic character truly is smpathetic, Abbott and Costello are both portraying characters who are genuinely nice, and everyone comes out ahead in the end (except the bad guys of course); they get theirs in an extended and very funny and cartoonish skiing sequence.

As with many (most?) of Abbott & Costello's films, there's an attractive couple or two in the supporting cast that are acting out a romantic subplot. While the attractive couples are here, the romantic subplot is so light so as to be non-existent... while Costello becoming smitten with songstress Ginny Sims more or less erases her romance with band leader Johnny Long until the very end of the movie. It's a nice change of pace, and it's even nicer to see Abbott try to help his buddy impress and obtain the unobtainable girl instead of just dismissing him.

Unfortunately, for all its strengths, the weak parts of this movie are really weak... and they are all related to the film's musical numbers. Singer Ginny Sims, together with Johnny Long and His Orchestra, perform five different songs, each less interesting than the one before. The movie even more-or-less ends with them performing a song, ensuring that the final impression the movie will leave you with is boredom instead of cheerfulness--despite the great performances from Abbott & Costello. The boring musical numbers make the one sequence in the film that drags on seem even longer. About halfway though the movie, the ice-skating hijinx implied in the title arrive, but they quickly become unwelcome as Costello's pratfalls grow repetitive, the ice dancing goes on for too long, and it's all set too the seemingly never-ending and absolutely terrible song "The Double-Slap Polka" performed by Sims and Long's orchestra. The boring musical numbers cost this film a Star, and if it hadn't been for the superior material that Abbott & Costello had to work with here, they could have ruined the whole movie.

"Hit the Ice" is a really fun movie that I think lovers of classic comedies will enjoy... so long as they keep in mind that the reward for sitting through the boring songs is getting to see Abbott & Costello at their best.

'Horse Feathers' is high-quality nonsense

With the college football season coming to an end for 2018, it seemed like the perfect time to rewatch one of my favorite Marx Brothers films with an eye toward reviewing it for Shades of Gray. And it was.

Horse Feathers (1932)
Starring: The Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd, Nat Pendleton, and James Pierce
Director: Norman McLeod
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

A crazy university president (Groucho Marx) tries to rig the Big Football Game against a rival school... with disastrous results.

"Horse Feathers" is one of the greatest movies the Marx Brothers ever made. It is an almost non-stop barrage of wild comedy--both visual, physical, and spoken--that is book-ended by my most favorite Marx Brothers song and dance routine--"Whatever It Is, I'm Against It"--and the craziest football spoof ever committed to film. Every joke and gag comes off perfectly, and the Marx Brothers are all top form, even the straight-man of the group, Zeppo, shines as a college football star and son of the university's president.

The stellar performances from the Marx Brothers are ably supported by equally great showings from Nat Pendleton (who appears as a football player) and Thelma Todd (who proves here that she will forever be one of the sexiest commedienes in history; films like this really show what a great loss to the world her tragic and premature death  was). Todds comedic timing is absolutely perfect throughout this film, as she vamps it up as a campus man-eater and femme fatale with the scenes she shares with Chico and Groucho being among the film's brightest highlights.

There is really only one part of the film that doesn't click is the musical number performed by Harpo in an attemtp to woo Thelma Todd's character. It goes on for too long and it brings the movie to a screeching halt for over three minutes. Yes, "Everyone Says I Love You" is a nice tune and Harpo plays beautifully, but the segment is out of place... and Zeppo and Groucho's respective uses of the verses of the same song in serenading Todd don't interrupt the flow of this zany movie. (In fact, Groucho's performance and its aftermath cranks it up a notch.)

There are few films I have watched more than once--there are simply too many movies in the world--but I am glad that I now number "Horse Feathers" among them. This second viewing was time well spent.