Call
of the Cuckoo
A nice Jewish
family live next door to a nuthouse (Laurel, Hardy, Chase & Finlayson are
the nutters), no one will buy their house, a trade is arranged, “no questions
asked”.
The trade-in is a
miswired out-of-plumb scroll-floored perturbation all the way.
A Richard Pryor
comedy, Moving (dir. Alan Metter), followed in due course.
Putting
Pants on Philip
The savage nephew
(Laurel) in kilts arouses a commotion by the sight of him just off the boat on
a sunny day in Los Angeles, he pursues an elegant flapper.
Hon. Piedmont
Mumblethunder (Hardy) takes him in charge as far as possible, even to a tailor.
Billy Wilder and
Richard Lester are among the legatees.
The
Battle of the Century
L.A. Pie Co. wares
fill in the remainder of a mutilated short on a prizefighter (Mr. Laurel) who
misses his chance and a trainer (Mr. Hardy) who sees the profit in insurance.
Leave
‘em Laughing
Mr. Laurel has
the toothache, Mr. Hardy gets the extraction, and both are so hilarious with
nitrous oxide that a traffic cop takes the wheel and drives them into a
mudhole.
The
Finishing Touch
Incompetents in
the construction trade (Laurel & Hardy).
H.M. Walker’s
title card says it all. “Professional Finishers— They can finish, a thing that
hasn’t even been started—”
A variant of
Bruckman’s Call of the Cuckoo in which the noisy nuts not only shut down
a hospital next door but demolish their own project as well.
Feet
First
Structurally, a
version for sound of Safety Last (dirs. Newmeyer & Taylor).
It begins in a
Honolulu shoe store and takes ship for Los Angeles.
A six-month
course in personality makes a shoe salesman out of a window-dresser, the cruise
he undertakes to impress the boss’s daughter, though he has no ticket or clothing
or anything but his wits, carries him in the U.S. Mail to a skyscraper (the
sequence is a variant of Never Weaken, dir. Newmeyer).
She’s the
secretary, really, and he’s no millionaire, hence the precarious position,
which only lands him on his feet to get a contract signed on time.
A comedy of
down-at-heels pluck and readiness brought to the test, an immensely funny
sequence of gags expressing the theme.
Movie
Crazy
There is nothing
like it, because there cannot be. Bruckman’s Feet First moves toward it,
and Taylor’s The Cat’s-Paw transcends it, but for sheer intricacy of
thought and action on the comedy screen, in a new style never witnessed before
or since, it takes the cake.
The screen test
isn’t seen, it’s acted out by Harold and the other actress he meets, who plays
a Spanish lady in a film, then it’s seen.
First sight of
Hollywood, getting off the train to watch a movie being made on location,
perfectly represented.
Harold Lloyd is
Superman, here his two sides are the would-be actor and the man of action, the
entire theme of the film.
Jerry Lewis is a
great student, and Blake Edwards, and Preston Sturges.
Lubitsch also has
original ideas about comedy.
The
Fatal Glass of Beer
The snowy night
is so fierce it cannot be commented on without a reply.
There is one
sure-fire remedy, chucking a worthless son out in it.
The great W.C.
Fields is the author of this masterwork.
Horses’
Collars
Curly’s aversion
to mice propels him into dynamic exertions after cheese to satiate the
identification, this saves the Stooges from hanging by a hornswoggler with a
crooked IOU on a lady’s ranch.
Man
on the Flying Trapeze
A “delightful
fragment” by Gertrude somebody-or–other expressing the theme, a memory expert’s
pining for happier times, “before I was married.”
|
we have what we have
not what we have not we
have up is down down is out everyone knew me and
I was happy and we were all happy is everybody happy and I bought a big
red apple yes unhappiness is
joy |