Healy and His Stooges

 

 (imdb)

SOUP TO NUTS-1930-Early comedy talkie starring Ted Healy and his stooges (Moe, Larry &.Shemp, although Moe is created as Harry). It's a lot of craziness that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and truth be known, it's not that funny (1930 was a long time ago) but it's still nice to see the original inception of the trio. 

The chaotic screenplay is by Rube Goldberg and it was directed by Benjamin Stoloff who later made NIGHT OF TERROR (1933) and the bizarre THE HIDDEN HAND (1942),

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Is It Butterworth it?

SIDE SHOW-1931-Serio-comedy love triangle set against a traveling circus. It was made a year before Tod Browning’s FREAKS. Do It All performer Pat (the homely Winnie Lightner) has troubles with her boyfriend when her younger sister comes for a visit.

This is a typical early talker that’s only worth seeing for the performance of comedian Charles Butterworth who was a big star at the time. It’s bizarre! He seems to be on another plane of existence, disconnected from the actual goings on! He kind of acts like Stan Laurel if he was on some type of drug! Guy Kibbee (about the only actor I actually was familiar with in the cast) plays the drunken owner.

Lightner later married SIDE SHOW’s director Roy del Ruth (who made the first version of THE MALTESE FALCON the same year) and retired from films. Butterworth wound up making films for low budget studios like Monogram. He died in a car crash in 1946.

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