Last week's post on rubber-legged slapstick master Leon Errol and silver screen humor essential Mel Brooks, as well as the previous one on The Three Stooges, has profoundly immersed this blog in the pratfall-packed world of physical comedy.
We've been heavily into Slapstickland, both silents and talkies, for the past three months. And many moons ago, back in 2013 (which now feels like 1913), wrote an extended series of Way Too Damn Lazy To Write a Blog posts paying tribute to the Columbia Shorts Department and Jules White.
Lee Weinstein's 2023 article The Rivals Of The Three Stooges adeptly covers the comedy headliners from Columbia 2-reelers at length and gets us thinking of the guy who spent 20 years with The Shorts Department before going on to a successful career in television, former silent slapstick perennial and Mack Sennett stock company player Andy Clyde.
In I'M A FATHER, Andy plays the "cranky old stick in the mud" to perfection.
2-reel comedy heavy hitters Vivien Oakland, Bud Jamison and especially Our Gang's Tommy Bond get big laughs in the following.
In such Columbia 2-reelers as OLD SAWBONES, a collaboration between prolific silent comedy creators Del Lord and Jack "Preston Black" White, Andy presents a down-home variant on the physical comedy formula of Moe, Larry and Curly.
Now it's on to character actor supreme, the guy who coached none other than Kate Hepburn in comedy chops during the making of Bringing Up Baby, the great Broadway and movie comedian Walter Catlett.
Along with Leon Errol and the comedy team of George Sidney & Charlie Murray, Walter Catlett actually preceded The Three Stooges as headliners of Columbia comedy shorts, beginning with Elmer Steps Out (1934).
Here's Walter in Get Along Little Hubby (1934). (Note: the following transfer is very out of sync). He co-stars with Vivien Oakland, very much a key player in the first year of The Shorts Department (and a take-no-prisoners character actress here), as well as ubiquitous slapstick comedy stalwart, future Columbia 2-reelers headliner and Three Stooges co-star Monte Collins.
In case you're wondering why Walter Catlett seems more than vaguely familiar. . .
Indeed, that is a wonderful performance in Pinocchio as J. Worthington Foulfellow A.K.A."Honest John."
In between his numerous character roles in feature films, Catlett turns up periodically in Columbia shorts through the early 1940's; he even co-stars with the popular Guy In A Gorilla Suit, who torments Walt and Dudley Dickerson (the talented African-American comedian invariably cast in grotesque stereotyped parts) in YOU'RE NEXT.
BLONDES AND BLUNDERS has a pronounced Moe-Larry-Curley style knockabout approach throughout, in no small part due to the presence of irreplaceable Three Stooges supporting comics Bud Jamison and Vernon Dent.
Walter Catlett had prominent roles in comedy and musical short subjects long before working for Columbia. Here he is, teamed with none other than gravel-voiced Eugene Pallette.
One of the most memorable Walter Catlett performances is in Mark Sandrich's 1933 RKO opus SO THIS IS HARRIS (1933).
Have devoted many blog posts to the unorthodox and original comedian Harry Langdon over the years.
Like Buster Keaton and Charley Chase, Harry was among the former silent movie headliners making 2-reelers at Columbia. While the films are a mixed bag, as Langdon was in his fifties and no longer able to do the strenuous physical comedy he aced with ease in 1924, still find them more often than not to be quite funny.
The following, directed by frequent Langdon collaborator Arthur Ripley and written by Harry McCoy, is a sendup of Warner Brothers' Warren William vehicle and courtroom drama The Mouthpiece (1932).
Harry works quite well with the marvelously and unabashedly over-the-top Hal Roach Studios comedian and cartoon voice artist Billy Gilbert in this 1935 opus. Langdon's the straight man here!
For more on this great movie comedian, check out Chicago historian Nicole Arciola's terrific Harry Langdon Archive YouTube channel, a classic comedy treasure trove.
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