In Memory of Robin Williams

It's been five years since the world got a little darker, because Robin Williams is no longer in it. Here are some pictures in his memory.

'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.

'Sinners in Paradise' should be left there

Sinners in Paradise (1938)
Starring: John Boles, Madge Evans, Bruce Cabot, Milburn Stone, Willie Fung, and Gene Lockhart
Director: James Whale
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

When a plane bound for China crashes in the South Sea, the surviving passengers--a motly group of killers, criminals, and the criminally annoying--are stranded on an uncharted island. They soon discover they aren't alone, but that the mysterious Mr. Taylor (Boles) and his Chinese servant Ping (Fung) are already living there... shunning civilization for reasons of their own.

"Sinners in Paradise" is a movie that time has passed by. Not only is it a story that I've seen done far, far better (Will Eisner told this type of story several times in his "Spirit" comic strip, and although he may have been drawing inspiration partly from Whale's picture, his tales are better), but the dramatic portions of the story come across as eye-rollingly stupid to contemporary audiences.

This film was far from James Whale's finest work. None of the creativity that was so evident in the productions of "Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein" can be seen here. Although this film probably had a budget far smaller than any of those other films, it still would have been nice to see something that was a little beyond "get the shot and move on."

'Picking Peaches' isn't the Pits

Picking Peaches (1924)
Starring: Harry Langdon, Alberta Vaughn, Ethel Teare, Alice Day, Dot Farley, Vernon Dent, and Kewpie Morgan
Director: Erle C. Kenton
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

When the wife (Vaughn) of a philandering shoe salesman (Langdon) enters a beach-side beauty contest to show him up, and wins, his jealousy puts him on a path to a well-deserved fate.

Any readers around my age surely remembers the Fox series "Married With Children", which featured a bitter shoe salesman, Al Bundy, who was married to a hot wife, Peggy. As soon as the lead character's profession was established, and it was shown that he had a testy relationship with his wife (who, like Peggy Bundy, is quite attractive), I immediately thought of Al Bundy. Unlike Al, however, who ultimately always remained faithful to his wife, the cad portrayed by Harry Langdon is anything but faithful to his. Not only goes he cheat on her, but he's such a horndog that one of his wife's friends thinks she can flirt her way into convincing him to buy the wife a new hat.
Aside from the generally unlikeable nature of Harry Langdon's character--not to mention his taste in women; the lady he cheats on his wife with isn't nearly as pretty nor as personable as she is--and a single completely out-of-place and ill-executed stunt involving a ladder, "Picking Peaches" is a lot fun.

One of the fun aspects of the film is how animation is integrated into the live action, sometimes subtly, sometimes very obviously, but always to great humorous effect. (I won't go into specifics for risk of ruining a couple of the gags, but the preview for the embedded copy of "Picking Peaches" below shows one of the mixed bits of animations and live action.)

Of course, many people might also find the film appealing for the same reason those "beach party" movies are appealing--it's got plenty of beautiful women in tight little outfits. Here, those outfits are one-piece bathing suits rather than bikinis but the same principle applies. I have seen references to the "bathing beauties" in Max Sennett pictures (the great Sybil Seely was one, for example), but I hadn't imagined how integral they might be to the plots of the films in which they appeared, nor how funny the gags they performed would be. While the girls in their bathing suits are great eye candy, this film would be far less funny if they weren't in it, not just because of the trouble the main character gets into by playing around with them, but also because of the gags during the bathing suit and high-dive competition that he attends.

One thing that makes this film noteworthy is that it was Harry Langdon's very first film appearance... and he went straight from starring on the stage to starring on the screen. The character he plays here is nothing like the white-faced, simple-minded clown that would become his signature once he teamed up with Frank Capra, but it's still clear to see why he is considered one of the great comedians of the silent era. (Even if you're familiar with Langdon's work and know he's not usually your cup of tea, "Picking Peaches" might still be worth your while to check out.


(THE FILM WAS EMBEDDED HERE FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE, BUT IT IS PRESENTLY NOT AVAILABLE. HOPEFULLY, IT WILL RETURN SOON.)

Musical Monday with Wheeler Walker, Jr.

Pot stores are popping up all over. Country/western sensation Wheeler Walker Jr. couldn't be happier, because, well, as he himself says in this song, he likes smoking pot a lot. (Friendly warning: Don't play this song at work, or around the hysterically sensitive.)



(Yeah... I probably should have saved this post until some time in April of 2020 [4/20]...)

'Air Fright' has comedic highs and lows, but mostly stays aloft

Air Fright (1933)
Starring: Patsy Kelly, Thelma Todd, Wilfred Lucas, Don Barclay, and Billy Bletcher
Director: Gus Meins
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Thelma (Todd) gets her brash girlfriend, Patsy (Kelly), a job as an air hostess at the same company she works for. Their first assignment together is on a plane where an experimental parachute emergency system is to be tested. It perhaps goes without saying, but things go wrong...

"Air Fright" was the third film that Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly made together, and it was the best up to this point. The script is the strongest yet, the humor works for the most part, Patsy Kelly's character is more hapless and a fish-out-of-water than annoying and stupid (as she was in "Beauty and the Bus"). There was even some comedic action and suspense mixed in when our heroines end up dangling from the airplane in a tangled parachute.

Although an improvement on the previous films featuring Todd and Kelly, when things didn't work here, they really didn't work. Kelly delivers a number of one-liners that flop to the ground harder than someone jumping from a plane without a parachute, and, once again, the film's pacing is off to the point where the ending feels like the last few minutes of the picture may be missing.

It should be noted that this is basically Patsy Kelly's picture. Todd basically plays the straight man while she fires off jokes and causes chaos; it's said that Hal Roach was shooting for a Laurel & Hardy vibe, but with women when it came to these pictures, but here Todd & Kelly come off like a Abbott & Costello-type team... but without Todd being the sort of jerk toward Kelly that Abbott so often was to Costello in their pictures. I point this out, because, although I enjoyed Kelly in the film, I understand that she has her detractors. Those who can't stand Kelly, but who still want to enjoy Todd--who is once again fun to watch, even if she doesn't get to stretch her comedic muscles much--may want to save this film until they have nothing else to watch.

"Air Fright" is one of 21 short films that Todd and Kelly made together, and it can be found included in the three DVD set The Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly Collection.

Spacegirl Adventures, Part Twenty-three

What Has Gone Before: The menacing Cadet Alpha is hot on the trail of Spacegirl, but our heroine is executing what she hopes will be another escape.

SPACEGIRL

By Travis Charest

To Be Continued...

By Gary Martin

The Thelma Todd Quarterly

Actress Thelma Todd was born on July 29, 1906. To mark the date, I'm presenting a series of photos she posed for in promotion of "Horse Feathers". Happy birthday, Ms. Todd, wherever you are!

Musical Monday with Calloway and Boop

The early Betty Boop cartoons are very trippy experiences... but this one seems moreso than others.

The Old Man of the Mountain (1933)
Starring: Cab Calloway (as the voice of the Old Man) and Bonnie Poe (as the voice of Betty Boop)
Director: Dave Fleischer
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

Although warned of the danger by an entire town of fleeing citizens, Betty Boop decides that she must see the Old Man of the Moutain herself.

Betty Boop had some surreal adventures in the early 1930s, and this is one of them. Although you have to wonder what when through that extra-large head of hers when she chose to disregard warnings from EVERYONE (including a woman who, depending on how darkly you want to view the storyline, was either the Old Man's unhappy wife, or a rape victim), and heads up to mountain to see for herself what everyone is so afraid of, this is among the more surreal of them. From the moment Betty meets the Old Man of the Mountain, this cartoon just keeps getting weirder and weirder... and keeps getting more and more entertaining.

Another really cool aspect of "The Old Man of the Mountain" is that it's essentially a music video; it's not just a cartoon where the characters sing a song or two, it's filled from beginning to end with jazz music and songs performed by Cab Calloway and his orchestra, along with Bonnie Poe. The character of the Old Man dancing was also reportedly rotoscoped from film of Cab Calloway performing. I've read this is one of three Betty Boop cartoons where the Calloway and his music are bascially the stars; I will be seeking out those and reviewing them in this space.

Meanwhile, if you like funky animation and even funkier jazz, you need to take a few minutes out of your day to watch "The Old Man of the Mountain".

The tragedy of 'One Cookie Left'

Taken for what this is, "One Cookie Left" is an amusing pastiche of early silent comedies. It's not brilliant, but it's also not bad, and there are several chuckle-prompting moments that you can enjoy right now, because I've embedded the film below. (That said... where did the guy's mustache in the first scene disappear to?)


One Cookie Left (2012)
Starring: Jessie and Max
Rating: Six of Ten Stars