An amusing flick with a botched ending

Hook, Line, and Sinker (1930)
Starring: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Dorothy Lee, George Marion, Natalie Moorehead, Jobyna Howland, and Ralf Harolde, and Hugh Herbert
Director: Edward Cline
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A pair of con artists (Wheeler and Woolsey) go straight to help a young heiress (Lee) to turn a rundown hotel into a successful destination for the rich and famous so she can gain independence and avoid an arranged marriage. Their efforts attract the attention of numerous gangsters who want rob the hotel's guests, including a gang operating out of the hotel's secret basement that just happens to be led by the heiress's would-be husband (Harolde).

"Hook, Line, and Sinker" was a box office smash in 1930--it was the top-grossing film for RKO, and may have been the top-grossing film, period. Knowing that, and watching the film in 2021, is a reminder of how tastes change over the decades. I like old movies (as clearly demonstrated by the fact this blog even exists), but I still had a hard time seeing how this film could have been so popular. It's got strong points, and it's fairly funny, but I don't see how it could have set the box office on fire the way it did.

In its favor, it's got plenty of straight-up bawdy humor and even more double entendres. There isn't any one particular bit that sticks out, but the non-stop stream of banter and humorous situations keeps the film moving along at a fast pace. It also manages to make the two clownish heroes the center of all romantic subplots, completely eschewing the usual  "serious" couple that normally carries at least some of those; instead, true love seems to reform the scoundrels here, so they get to clown around and have a romantic happy ending. It's a nice change of pace that no time is wasted on a bland, uninteresting couple.

Unfortunately, this otherwise entertaining movie is dragged by an ending that goes on for entirely too long. Without spoiling too much, the final portion of the film is devoted to a shoot-out between the various gangs trying to rob the hotel safe, with our heroes and their lady friends caught in the middle and trying to fight back. It's the sort of chaotic free-for-all that's been the hallmark of action comedies for decades, but here it goes on for too long. The jokes are funny, but the action feels padded and a climax that was undoubtedly conceived to be equal parts exciting and funny, but it meanders instead of builds in intensity and ends up being tedious and should have ended well before a conclusion is forced with a splash of deus ex machina. (The film does give us the nicety of a little dénouement, but it doesn't make up for the flabby climax.)

Part of me almost excused the badly executed action of the climax, using the logic that in the 90+ years since "Hook, Like, and Sinker" the flow of action sequences have been worked and reworked and perfected over time... but then I remembered that Edward Cline was co-directing action films back when he was working with Buster Keaton. Films like "Cops" (1922) and "Convict 13" (1920) shows that Cline should have had a better understanding of how to execute comedic and chaotic action climaxes. Therefore, I can only conclude the the ending was just straight--up botched.

"Hook, Line, and Sinker" is one of nine Wheeler & Woolsey vehicles included in the RKO Comedy Classics, Volume One set. While this film has its flaws, other films in the sex more than make up for those in value.

'Half Shot at Sunrise' is more than halfway decent

Half Shot at Sunrise (1930)
Starring: Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Dorothy Lee, Leni Stengel, George MacFarlane, Edna May Oliver, and Jack Rutherford, and Edgar DeLange
Director: Paul Sloane
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

A couple soldiers (Wheeler and Woolsey) are having the time of their lives AWOL in Paris during WWI, ducking MPs and happily hitting on every woman they see. When one of them  falls in love with the Colonel's teenaged daughter (Lee), and she decides to help his military career, things start to get complicated.

"Half Shot at Sunrise" is a supremely silly movie  that is light on plot but heavy on shenanigans and clever quips and offhanded double-entrendres. You'll hardly notice the lack of plot though, as Wheeler and Woolsey keep the jokes and tricks flowing non-stop, and when Dorothy Lee is added to the mix things get even wilder. If you like madcap military comedies, I think you'll enjoy this film quite a bit.

That said, it's not a perfect movie. The main drawback are the songs/musical numbers--which are . They are not all that good, and they interrupt the film's momentum and stop it dead in its tracks. I did enjoy the goofy dance routines that came with each song, but they were not enough to make up for the lameness of the music. These dragged my rating of this otherwise fun movie down from a low Eight to what was almost a Six on my 0-10 scale.

Another flaw was a serious romantic subplot involving the colonel's oldest daughter and a straight-laced Army lieutenant that ran along side the antics of the three main characters. While it served as a nice counterpoint to the Wheeler/Woolsey/Lee clown show, and brought a little dimension to some of the supporting characters, it really just made me wish for more of the clown show. It wasn't as damaging to the flow of the film as the weak musical numbers, but it didn't really add that much in the final analysis.

"Half Shot at Dawn" is one of nine films included in the Wheeler and Woolsey: RKO Comedy Classics Collection. That collection is a broad sampling of their films for RKO that stretches from the beginning of their contract until its end, and it includes some of their biggest hits.

'Hips, Hips, Horray!' is worth a cheer

Hips, Hips, Horray! (1934)
Starring: Robert Woolsey, Bert Wheeler, Dorothy Lee, Thelma Todd, George Meeker, Phyllis Barry, and Dorothy Granger
Director: Mark Sandrich
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Small-time inventors of a flavored lipstick (Woolsey and Wheeler), on the hunt for love and money, con their way into a partnership with a large cosmetics firm, Maid in America.

"Hips, Hips, Horray!" is one of those early 1930s comedies full of a variety of sexual innuendos, scantily clad women, and jokes and gags that made the censorship boards of the day gasp with outrage, and which will make their 21st century spiritual successors shriek with horror. It's also a film that makes no pretenses about the fact that it's main purpose is to be entertaining and outrageous. It features only the thinnest of plots that, even though it's well-crafted enough to include all the elements of the Three Act structure, never really gives the viewer any doubt that every thing will work out find for our heroes and their love interests, the owner of Maid in America (Thelma Todd), whose firlm is being sabotaged from within, and her employee and confidant (Dorothy Lee, who was essentially was the third member of the W&W team).

Although, like I mentioned, this film's main purpose is to entertain and be outrageous, there's a little more going on here than just antics, as a good portion of the film is devoted to making fun of the chorus-girl filled song-and-dance numbers that were so typical in movies at the time.

The film opens with one such production number that is so over-the-top, and so filled with naked women, concealed only by bath bubbles or cosmetic products strategically placed in the camera shot, that even the most prudish of viewers (then and now) should be able to get a chuckle out of it. Later, in what is arguably the film's greatest sequence, where Wheeler & Lee and Woolsey & Todd, respectively declare their love and lust for each other through song (the catchy tune "Keep Doing What You're Doing") and then start doing a choreographed dance during which they trash an elegant office. The song is pretty standard fare for films of this period--even if, once again, the innuendo button is being mashed firmly and often--but the dance routine is a hilarious, small-scale send-up of those insanely elaborate Busby Berkeley production numbers.

In addition to the musical production number send-ups, "Hips, Hips, Horray!" features a cartoonish sequence where our heroes accidentally end up driving the car that's taking part in a cross-country race to promote Maid in America. It's bit jarring the way the movie suddenly shifts from being a fairly grounded satire confined to corporate offices to a zany racing comedy where cars can get swept up in tornadoes and Kansas and safely deposited in the Rocky Mountains, the material is funny enough... although it also cost the movie a Star on my Ratings System. Because the movie ends with a car race, Thelma Todd and Dorothy Lee are completely sidelined and given nothing worthwhile to do during this finale--which is a shame, because they already had very little to do in the picture. Given the slight plot in this film--which, as I mentioned, is mostly here to move us from gag to gag--it's almost a given that Todd has very little to do in the picture at all (and Lee only slightly more-so), because she put on an excellent show in her previous teaming with Wheeler and Woolsey, the more plot-driven "Cockeyed Cavaliers".

"Hips, Hips Horray!" is one of nine films included in the Wheeler and Woolsey: RKO Comedy Classics Collection.

'Cockeyed Cavaliers' has hits and misses

Cockeyed Cavaliers (1934)
Starring: Robert Woolsey, Bert Wheeler, Dorothy Lee, Thelma Todd, Noah Beery, and Robert Greig
Director: Mark Sandrich
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

A pair of wandering rogues (Woolsey and Wheeler) pass themselves off as physicians from the King's Court and insinuate themselves into the household of the local lord (Greig). In between hitting on his sister (Todd) and trying to help a young woman who has disguised herself as a boy (Lee) in order to avoid a forced marriage to the lord, they are constantly struggling to avoid giving themselves away by being too stupid.

"Cockeyed Cavaliers" is a movie of highs and lows. When it is funny, it is very funny. When the jokes fail to land, they crash and leave big craters.

I can't decide if it's the style of the performances in the film, or the material that gets in the way when the movie starts sliding in the direction of crappy, so it may be a combination of both. And there's one area where the costume designers and make-up artists didn't go quite far enough to make an aspect of the film convincing.

First, let's start with the script, the songs, and the jokes.

Story-wise, the script is solid, nicely paced, and consisting of several intertwining plots that provide our heroes with plenty of challenges to overcome--including their own stupidity. The romantic subplot between Bert Wheeler and Dorothy Lee's characters--which starts when everyone believes Lee to be a boy--is interesting and ultimately leads straight into the film's conclusion and resolution of all the various problems; and the danger posed by Robert Woolsey's inability to not be randy around the wife of the very jealous and very violent baron (Thelma Todd and Noah Beery respectively) give rise to an equal amount of comedy and tension. The pieces are all very well arranged to maximize both the comedic and dramatic value of the plot elements and the characters in them.

Unfortunately, two out of the film's three major musical numbers aren't all that great. In fact, the song that opens the movie--performed by gossiping villagers and setting up a few major plot points--was so lame that if I wasn't watching this movie as part of the "Year of the Hot Toddy" project, I might have found something else to do with my time. The second song ("The Big Bad Wolf is Dead"), performed by our heroes, the films kinda-sorta villain, and the staff and guests at an inn, is better, but it goes on for entirely too long and the parts that are supposed to be funny mostly fail to launch or fail and crash. The third and final song ("Dilly Dally")--a combination song and dance number performed by Wheeler & Lee and Woolsey & Todd, in pars and together as a group--is, however, extremely entertaining on every level. It's well worth the wait. In some ways, this song even reflects the trajectory of the movie; it starts shaky, but firms up at about the halfway point, and really delivers during the third act. (This is of course better than the opposite.)

Despite the film getting better as it goes, the comedy remains uneven. It is not until we reach the climax--with a high society party, a wild boar hunt, and an even wilder chase scene--that every joke and physical comedy bit comes off well. Up to that point, some of the comedy routines fall flat because the jokes are weak and delivery feels like Wheeler and Woolsey (or whoever their "straight man" is) are performing a routine on stage. While other similar comedians--like the Marx Brothers and, later, Abbott & Costello, were literally taking routines perfected on stage and porting them into films, when watching them, I rarely have the feeling that a waiter is about to lean in and ask for my drink order the way I felt with nearly ever bit in this film. In fact, the scenes that worked the best were the ones where the comedy arose from the situation as much as it did from the back and forth between characters. For example, every scene Woolsey shares with Todd varies from chuckle-worthy to laugh-out-loud funny, especially when the action is revolving around Todd's cleavage.

In fact, I think the only thing that ruined this film for me more than the nightclub-style delivery of many of the jokes was the fact that I simple could not buy Dorothy Lee as a boy. Sure, she was in man's clothing, but the characters would have to be both blind and stupid to not recognize that she was female. This is a shame, because there are some funny jokes tied to the cross-dressing element which would have been even funnier if more of an effort had gone into making it work. I mean, would it really have been that hard to give Lee a hairstyle more in keeping with what her character was pretending to me? Or perhaps putting her in a shirt and vest that were even looser and a little longer?

There are so many things I like about this film that I wish I could have liked the end result more. Aside from the stand-up feel of some of the delivery, every actor in the film is great in their parts. It's easy to see why Dorothy Lee played opposite Wheeler & Woolsey in just about every movie they made, because they make an excellent trio. And, although she had more than come into her own as a comedienne by the time she made this movie, Thelma Todd is mostly used here as the "straight man" for everyone else to play off... and she does that just as well here as she did when she filled that role in her earliest films with Charley Chase. Meanwhile, Noah Beery and Robert Greig are equal parts funny and melodramatically villainous as the film's corpulent bad guys. The production values in this period film are also top-notch, as are the special effects and stunts during the film's climax. And I adored every second of the aforementioned "Dilly Dally" routine. Still, I can't bring myself to give this film more than a high Six Rating.

"Cockeyed Cavaliers" is one of six films in the Wheeler & Woolsey RKO Comedy Classics Vol. 2 set, which features a mix of movies Wheeler & Woolsey made as a team and individually.