JITTERBUGS-20th Century Fox-1943 -This is probably the best post-Hal Roach comedy Laurel & Hardy made. It’s no classic but it has it’s moments and Stan appears in drag through most of the story! It’s ten times better than their previous film AIR RAID WARDENS made earlier in the year for MGM.
The team play two musicians named Laurel & Hardy who run into trouble when they meet up with a con artist (Bob Bailey, who would also play the male lead in the team’s next feature THE DANCING MASTERS) peddling phony gasoline pills. He eventually gets them involved in helping a young singer (Vivian Blaine) swindle some swindlers who stole her $10,000. For a while Ollie impersonates a southern millionaire while Stan pretends to be Blaine’s rich aunt.. A dance routine between the two is a highlight. The musical production numbers might seem unnecessary but were used in an effort to compete with the Abbott & Costello comedies at Universal and to show off the talents of newcomer Blaine (who ended her career in the Charles Band 3-D fiasco PARASITE!). Also in the cast are Lee Patrick as a phony Southern gold digger who has a good routine with Hardy and veteran character actor Douglas Fowley. He and Patrick were later in THE SEVEN FACES OF DR. LAO together! Anthony Caruso has a small un-billed role.
Director Mal St. Arnold made hundreds of comic features and shorts and really helped make this a success. Screen writer Scott Darling did tons of stuff too including FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN, Monogram’s MR. WONG series (with Karloff) and the last Charlie Chan series with Ronald Winters.
THE BIG NOISE-1944-This late period Laurel & Hardy comedy from Fox isn't very good. The team plays a pair of phony detectives who are hired by an inventor (Arthur Space) to guard the super bomb he’s invented. Little Bobby Blake (the future TV star and murder suspect) is the little brat who causes much of the trouble. Director Mal St. Clair helmed many of the team’s later work, which with one or two exceptions is pretty terrible.
NOTHING BUT TROUBLE-1944-Slight Laurel & Hardy comedy with Stan & Ollie as an unemployed butler and cook who get involved with a young runaway who is actually the king of some foreign country. His evil Uncle wants him to “meet with an accident” so he can be in charge. There are some amusing parts but it’s sad to see the great comedy team being wasted in such a minor storyline. Character actor Mary Boland plays her usual ditzy socialite.
Laurel & Hardy would make only two more movies after this. They did have a successful tour of England however before making their last disastrous outing ATOLL K. Ironically director Sam Taylor would make only one more movie after this. He had written many silent films (somehow that doesn’t sound right…) including Harold Lloyd’s classic SAFETY FIRST. Co-scripter Roy Golden (also doing his last work) had written THE BIG STORE for The Marx Brothers(arguably their weakest and technically their last as a team) in 1941.
THE ALL NEW ADVENTURES OF LAUREL & HARDY: FOR LOVE OR MUMMY- Mummy Productions-1998-Although this is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, it can serve as a lesson for the families of famous people to retain the rights on the likenesses of their well known relatives. Two stupid L & H clones (Bronson Pichot and Garland Sairtain) become involved with a living mummy. As impersonators they suck big time. The story is idiotic and full of unfunny gags. The premise (of a mummy coming back to life and terrorizing a professor and his daughter) doesn’t even fit in with a Laurel and Hardy plot. It’s more like something for The Three Stooges or Abbott & Costello. It's inane!
Academy Award winner F. Murray Abraham is the professor (maybe the F stands for Fast buck). Everyone else in the cast is awful. And what’s the deal with that giant snake at the end?
These “new adventures” were the brainchild of Bozo The Clown entrepreneur Larry Harmon (who died last month) who also happened to own the Laurel & Hardy copyrights. Besides appearing briefly, he co-produced and co-directed with John Cherry III who’s previous work was on “ERNEST” movies. I don’t think the writers of this dreck had ever written a screenplay before!
Pinchot co-starred in the TV sit-com “Perfect Strangers”. Sartain was a regular on Hee-Haw and played coach Don Zimmer in the Showtime bio about Yankees manager Joe Torre. Some of the cast and crew later worked on PIRATES OF THE PLAIN (a family oriented feature with Tim Curry as a pirate transported to the present day) which Cherry directed.
"A committee is a group of the unprepared,
appointed by the unwilling to do the unnecessary"-Fred Allen
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment