Dawn Of Talkies Comedy

Thinking, as we do often, of movie comedians who successfully transitioned from silents to talkies.



Some studios and funmakers did better than others. Mack Sennett had his problems adapting to the new medium but did employ the likes of Harry Gribbon, Vernon Dent and Andy Clyde - and a couple of years later, the brilliant W.C. Fields.



Next: comediennes in early talkies, led by the following bravura performance of Marie Dressler in Hollywood Revue Of 1929. She must have been devastatingly great on stage!



Marie & Polly Moran both made Mack Sennett comedies back in the WW1 era and actually worked as a comedy team in 1927-1931 MGM features. Here they are in the Al Christie talkie DANGEROUS FEMALES.



Another actress who got big laughs in both silents and talkies was "baggy pants comedienne" Louise Fazenda, former star of Universal Joker, Mack Sennett and Educational (Jack White) Comedies - and later a key supporting player in Warner Bros. musicals. She plays a Calamity Jane gunslinger type in the following "when men were men and sheep were nervous" scenario.



While the spotlight on silent movie comediennes who successfully transitioned to sound should definitely include Marion Davies, there are no short excerpts from her early talkies available via YouTube, Daily Motion and Internet Archive, just complete features. Alas, Mabel Normand, Wanda Wiley and Alice Howell did not make any sound movies. Have read that Fay Tincher's last film, All Wet (1930), was a Universal Pictures talkie 2-reeler starring Syd Saylor, but have never seen it.

Then there's Educational Pictures, which featured the often inspired and memorable comic Lloyd "Ham" Hamilton, then in his second run with the prolific comedy films distributor, in 1929.



Lloyd Hamilton's sound pictures from 1929-1931 represent a comeback after a stretch in which personal problems including multiple injuries, homelessness, unfortunate presence at drunken brawls and hard partying in general got him banned from the screen for a year.



In Toot Sweet, Hamilton does a good job of bringing his unrelentingly snakebit, shabby sad sack character from silents to sound.



Don't Be Nervous, featuring Ham in a dual role, would be my favorite of the Lloyd Hamilton Talking Comedies, along with the extremely funny Prize Puppies from 1930.





Hamilton continued starring in very funny talkie 2-reelers through the early 1931 Educational releases.









Before his decades as a megastar of British movies and stage shows (Me & My Girl), Lupino Lane starred in short comedies through the teens and twenties.



A favorite of the musical comedy aficionados at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog remains this very wacky number co-starring the ever-charming Lillian Roth with the ever-tumbling Lupino from the Ernst Lubitsch feature The Love Parade.



Now it's on to the Hal Roach Studio. A bunch of the Lot Of Fun stars and stock company members, including Max Davidson, Thelma Todd and Eddie Dunn appear together in this Edgar Kennedy 2-reeler.



100 years after his heydey, Harry Langdon remains both among the funniest and most polarizing of all movie comedians.



The gang here are among the few who are not only okay with Langdon's utter oddity and consider it his m.o. as a performer, but actually find his much maligned Hal Roach talkies quite funny in a very unorthodox way.



Devoted an entire post to these films - here's one of them!



Robert McGowan created the Our Gang series and helmed the films in silents by speaking the directions to the child actors, so these first talkies, in which he absolutely could not do that, are fascinating.



They are also interesting in blending the series' silent era stars, a.k.a. Hal Roach's Rascals, with the group that would increasingly carry the first season of sound Our Gang comedies.



Can't omit Laurel & Hardy from this mix. Berth Marks is notable for establishing something of a Guinness World Record for the amount of screen time devoted to one bit. The unrelentingly claustrophobic scene in the Pullman car features rather amazing extended physical comedy by Stan & Babe.



Our favorite of this bunch of early talkie comedies by far is Charley Chase and Thelma Todd in CRAZY FEET!



Are Charley and Thelma irreverent, extremely goofy and hilarious? Yes.



Acknowledgments: Weirdo Video, Geno Cuddy, Ralph Celentano, The Library of Congress, Dave Glass and all those involved at Sprocket Vault (Kit Parker, Richard M. Roberts especially) in making the 1929 Hal Roach talkies available on Blu-ray and DVD.

Born On This Day: Slapstick Diva Thelma Todd

Alas, started this day by accidentally hitting the "delete" button and instantaneously jettisoning this entire post - in the immortal words of motivational speaker Matt Foley, WHOOPS-A-DAISY. Shall now attempt to re-construct the 7-29-2023 post on the fly - and rewrite as we go!

Let's just say that on this day back in 1906, the pride of Lawrence, Kansas, the talented actress Thelma Todd was born.

The vivacious comedienne was also The Pip From Pittsburg!

Her 120+ films included both countless comedies and memorable dramatic parts in the crime thriller Corsair and the first screen adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, starring Ricardo Cortez as a rather randy, always hot-to-trot Sam Spade. Here, Thelma (as "the college widow") attempts to romance Groucho Marx in Horse Feathers.



Whenever the gang here gets down and in the dumps, we watch a comedy film in which one of the supporting players happens to be Thelma Todd!



Was there ANY comedian in the late silents and early talkies who Thelma did not co-star with?



The answer to that question is Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Roscoe Arbuckle, Lupino Lane, W.C. Fields, Lloyd Hamilton and the certifiable Clark & McCullough.

Thelma appeared as a valuable supporting player in films with all the rest of the funmakers, including the aforementioned Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, Joe E. Brown and the outstanding movie comedy teams Laurel & Hardy and Wheeler & Woolsey.






Knowing comedy talent when he encountered it, producer Hal Roach signed Thelma as a stock company member at The Lot Of Fun in 1929.



She has striking parts in several entries from the Roach Studio's bizarre (but hilarious) 1929 Harry Langdon series, which this writer reviewed here.







Tops in my book - Thelma's films with comedian Charley Chase!






A less prominent but extremely funny Hal Roach short subject featuring Thelma Todd is Love Fever, from The Boy Friends series.

Author, film historian and Hal Roach Studios expert Leonard Maltin elaborates on this lesser known but hilarious Hal Roach comedy.



At the moment, several entries from The Boy Friends series have been posted as a playlist on Archive.org. Perhaps The Boy Friends comedies will eventually find their way onto Blu-ray or DVD. . .

After Thelma and Charley made a wonderful team and worked beautifully together in The Pip From Pittsburg, Looser Than Loose and other short subjects, producer Hal Roach spun Thelma off into her own series. Roach had been experimenting with female comedy teams for awhile, having teamed comediennes Anita Garvin and Marion "Peanuts" Byron in the silent 2-reelers A Pair Of Tights, Feed 'Em And Weep and Going Ga-Ga. Thelma was teamed with character actress and comedienne ZaSu Pitts.



Hal Roach, who wanted to establish a "female Laurel & Hardy" as soon as it was clear that Stan & Babe were an enormous hit, tried a comedy team of Anita Garvin and Marion "Peanuts" Byron in 1928-1929, then, beginning in 1931, produced a series of 17 Thelma & Zasu comedies.



The first Todd-Pitts short subjects were directed by Marshall "Mickey" Neilan, veteran of numerous silent features and short subjects.

Thankfully, the complete series of Todd-Pitts comedies can be bought on the Sprocket Vault 2-DVD set Thelma Todd & Zasu Pitts: The Hal Roach Collection 1931-33.

Watch the following, On The Loose, all the way through to see one of the funniest cameos in silver screen comedy history!



Here's an excerpt from one the funniest of the Todd-Pitts and Todd-Kelly comedies, The Bargain Of The Century (1933), which was directed by none other than Charley Chase.

Zasu, with numerous and increasing offers to work in feature films, left the series in 1933. She would be succeeded as Thelma's teammate by the very funny and enjoyably rowdy Patsy Kelly. All 21 Todd-Kelly 2-reelers, thankfully, are available on DVD from Classic Flix, the same company which has produced several terrific sets featuring Our Gang a.k.a. Hal Roach's Rascals.



Our favorite from the Todd-Kelly series? Top Flat (1935)!



Wikipedia elaborates:Todd continued her short-subject series through 1935 and was featured in the full-length Laurel and Hardy comedy The Bohemian Girl. It was her last role before her untimely death at age 29. Although she had completed all of her scenes, producer Roach had them re-shot, fearing negative publicity. He deleted all of Todd's dialogue, and limited her appearance to one musical number.

In closing, important acknowledgments for this and many other Lot Of Fun-centric posts go to Leonard Maltin, Sprocket Vault, Classic Flix, Benny Drinnon and the extremely thorough Dave Lord Heath of the Another Nice Mess website - thanks to all of you! In addition, we note that YouTube poster Anthony Scibelli has covered Thelma Todd's movie career and untimely passing as part of his entertaining and informative Unsung Legends Of Comedy series.

New On DVD: Pre-Code Gems by Silent Comedy Great Charley Chase

"The 18 short comedies from 1930-31 are a sheer delight, each a perfect showcase for Charley's brilliant comic timing and breezy personality. An added bonus are the appearances in these films of Charley's frequent screen partner, the wonderful Thelma Todd. The icing on the cake are the amiable commentaries provided by Richard Roberts, one of the leading comedy film historians and an authority on Charley Chase's life and career. Roberts' relaxed style brings a refreshing personal touch; it's more like chatting with an old friend who's freely sharing what he knows, and that's always a good thing. I can't recommend this set highly enough, and hope many more people will discover the great Charley Chase in these hilarious films. May there be a Volume Two, and many more to come!" -- Edward Watz (noted Author and Film Historian)




The classic movie and comedy aficionados who write this blog are thrilled and delighted to hear about the release of this 2-DVD collection of early 1930's films starring the director/writer/comedian Charles Parrott a.k.a. Charley Chase (1893-1940).



New Blu-ray/DVD collections of Charley Chase, one of the most popular comedy stars in both the silent and sound eras, but neglected for decades, are most welcome!



We love the silent 2-reelers Charley and Leo McCarey collaborated on in the silent era and also love his pre-code talkies, 18 of which will be on this 2-DVD set.



Chase talkie shorts produced by the Hal Roach Studio have never been collected into a comprehensive collection before and this set includes some of the funniest and most delightful of all pre-code films made in the early 1930's.



Many of Charley's best films were made with the vivacious actress and comedienne Thelma Todd. They were the equivalent of a comedy team in their many appearances together in 1929-1931.



See Charley co-star with the wonderful Thelma in two of their best films, The Pip From Pittsburg and Looser Than Loose!



See Charley sing! See Charley annoy everyone on a golf course by just wanting to be liked in All Teed Up!



See Charley do a "wrestling women" routine 50 years before Andy Kaufman in the hysterically funny Thundering Tenors!



See Charley anticipate screwball comedy and the classic film humor his friend and collaborator Leo McCarey would later create with that unique combo of dashing leading men and brilliant light comedian, Cary Grant (seen here with Irene Dunne in The Awful Truth).



Charley Chase: At Hal Roach: The Talkies Volume One 1930-31 can be ordered now and is available exclusively on Amazon.



We're big fans of the inventive, hilarious Charley Chase at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog and look forward to this release, which can be ordered here.



The lineup of films on Charley Chase: At Hal Roach: The Talkies Volume One 1930-31 is as follows:

The Real McCoy
Whispering Whoopee
All Teed Up
Fifty Million Husbands
Fast Work
Girl Shock
Dollar Dizzy
La Señorita de Chicago (Spanish version of "The Pip from Pittsburg")
Looser Than Loose
High C's
Thundering Tenors
The Pip from Pittsburg
Rough Seas
One of the Smiths
The Panic Is On
Skip the Maloo!
What a Bozo!
The Hasty Marriage




We tip our brown derbies respectfully to Kit Parker and Richard Roberts, the masterminds behind this set for , and also to the source of the links and screen captures in today's post, Dave Lord Heath, who has done top-notch work for years on his Another Nice Mess: The Films Of Laurel & Hardy website. At Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog we consider Dave Lord Heath's website, along with the work of film historians Randy Skredtvedt and Richard Bann, the last word on the Hal Roach Studios.



We send readers to Dave Lord Heath's website, Another Nice Mess: The Films Of Laurel & Hardy because the generally reliable Turner Classic Movies database frequently offers nothing beyond a title, release date, director and cast on the Charley Chase comedy shorts, while Wikipedia entries can vary and imdb too often is riddled with factual errors and glaring omissions.



In the silent film comedy pantheon, Charlie Chaplin was the most elegant, Buster Keaton the most brilliant, Harry Langdon the most original, Harold Lloyd the greatest at presenting sight gag humor within a winning Douglas Fairbanks style action/adventure storyline, Madcap Mabel Normand the prettiest/spunkiest/brightest and Lloyd Hamilton the quirkiest, but Mr. Chase gets bigger, louder belly laughs from this blogger than all of them.



If enough comedy fans and classic film aficionados purchase this set, it will be possible to look forward to a Volume 2. For more info, go to The Sprocket Vault website and also check out the Sprocket Vault Classic Films Facebook page.

New On DVD: Retrospective Of Silent Film Comedy Innovator by Paul F. Etcheverry

"Charley Chase's run of Pathe two reelers from 1925 through 1927 are an astonishing group -- two dozen comedies, each with carefully crafted gag situations that aren't repeated, almost every film a gem. The only track record comparable are the Laurel & Hardy silent MGM shorts of 1927-1929. The few Chase MGM silents that escaped a fate of nitrate decomposition (such as THE STING OF STINGS and LIMOUSINE LOVE) are equally outstanding." Historian Ed Watz, author (with Ted Okuda) of The Columbia Comedy Shorts

Prolific writer-director-comedian Charley Chase - some of you may know him from his role as "the practical joker" in Laurel and Hardy's Sons Of The Desert (1933) - just got some more of his due recognition earlier today.



All Day Entertainment released Becoming Charley Chase, a 4-DVD box set spanning his early career in silent films. While it's a good bet that many of this blog's readers know who Charley Chase (A.K.A. Charles Parrott) was and have seen some of his films, as well the classic two-reelers he directed at Columbia Pictures for The Three Stooges, even fans may not be aware of his importance in film and comedy history.



Chase, along with fellow innovators Harry Langdon and Lloyd Hamilton, essentially changed film history in the mid-1920's by bringing a less frantic, more sophisticated and varied approach to both slapstick and that bastard child of entertainment, the comedy short subject. All three expanded the screen comedy palette. Chase in particular added more sophisticated storylines to classic sight gag humor.



Prior to that, sophisticated comedy and slapstick were strictly separate genres, especially in short films. Sophisticated comedy, exemplified by the popular Mr. And Mrs. Sidney Drew, primarily stuck to pratfall-free but absurdity-filled marital farces. Slapstick - epitomized by the "louder, faster, shorter" school of Mack Sennett, Henry Lehrman and Larry Semon, the king of epic sight gag spectacle - was a rip-roaring characterization-free zone where guys with gargantuan mustaches ran around frantically, threw pies, destroyed cars, water towers crashed, fat guys got doused with gallons of goo, little guys scampered on skyscrapers, lions chased terrified actors, stuff "blowed up real good". . . and stuntmen worked hard, very hard.



Charley Chase mastered all of the above: directed marital farces starring Mr. And Mrs. Carter DeHaven, slapstick for Sennett, Hal Roach (the Snub Pollard series) and Chaplin imitator Billy West, as well as Lloyd Hamilton, whose 1920's and 1930's comedies blend sight gag humor with subtle acting, deliberate timing and an eternally world-weary sad sack characterization. Charley also was among the creative team that developed the Our Gang comedy series for Hal Roach in 1921-1922.



By merging elements of the two genres, as well as fostering a more character-driven approach with Our Gang, Chase changed the very nature of film humor, paving the way for both Laurel & Hardy and the screwball comedy genre that became popular just a few years later.



Although he has been hailed as the originator of situation comedy and aptly compared to Dick Van Dyke (especially Dick's 1960-1965 TV series, created by Carl Reiner), Charley Chase also points forward to quite a few comedians both in and outside of that genre who became prominent long after his death in 1940. The clever invention of his ideas recalls Ernie Kovacs. The contrast between an everyman and a host of improbable, bizarre and wacky things that can happen brings to mind an equally funny guy whose style is very different from Chase: the great Bob Newhart, master of standup comedy and the sitcom. And his mannerisms - especially in such still hilarious films as Mighty Like A Moose (1926) - often make me think of The Goons and The Pythons (watch the Ministry Of Silly Walks sketch and then reference Charley's inebriated gait in His Wooden Wedding).



The 4-DVD set traces his artistic development and features a selection of short and sweet one-reel short subjects he starred in and co-directed with Leo McCarey.



It includes over 40 silent shorts from Chase's early years in movies, both as actor and director, and chronologically moves from his first directorial efforts for Mack Sennett, later films he made as a freelancing director (including one in which he co-stars with the always fabulous Oliver "Babe" Hardy - before either worked at the Hal Roach Studio) and Chase's re-invention as starring performer.



I extend big time thanks to David Kalat, Robert Blair at VCI Entertainment and all the film historians - Ben Model, Robert Arkus, Richard M. Roberts, Paul Gierucki, Rob Farr, Yair Solan, Bruce Lawton, Dave Stevenson - who contributed to this. If you love classic comedy and film history, buy it.