We are happy to see the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum present a two day tribute to one of the greatest and arguably the most original of all the comedians from silents and early talkies, Harry Langdon (1884-1944).
On the strength of a series of popular short comedies produced by Mack Sennett and the success of his first three First National feature films, Harry Langdon became a major star and rival to Chaplin for top box-office attraction in screen comedy in the 1920's.
Following an era dominated by Keystone slapstick, Harry presented a minimalistic and wholly unique style of comedy featuring his highly unusual "manchild-space cadet" characterization.
In this respect, Langdon, along with Charley Chase (who also began headlining comedy short subjects in 1924), followed the leads of Buster Keaton and Lloyd Hamilton away from the rough house knockabout favored by Mack Sennett, Henry Lehrman's L-Ko and Fox Sunshine comedies, Roscoe Arbuckle at Comique, Larry Semon at Vitagraph, Hamilton himself as part of Kalem's despicable scoundrel team of "Ham & Bud," and the early Harold Lloyd (in his "Lonesome Luke" series of 1915-1917) towards a less frantic and more nuanced approach.
The first day of the festival will concentrate on Harry's silent films, the second shall present two different programs of his talkies, one from the 1930's, the last from the 1940's.
In lieu of I Don't Remember and Cold Turkey, the Harry Langdon Film Festival will be showing The Stage Hand and The Head Guy. The latter is one of Harry's indescribably bizarre early talkies from his 1929 Hal Roach series and reflects his uncanny ability to be brilliantly original, irritating, uniquely funny, fearless, wildly flailing and a blazing comic genius within the same five minutes. Also on the bill on Sunday will be
seversl of the Educational Pictures "Mermaid Comedies" series co-starring Harry Langdon and Vernon Dent; these are arguably Harry's strongest work in the sound era, and the only talkies that get the "little elf" characterization right.
There will be plenty of live presentations on Harry's 20 year career in movies and book signings throughout the weekend. Historians and authors will be offering live introductions to the programs, in addition to the recorded intros by Harry Langdon experts like Michael J. Hayde, Ben Model, Rob Farr and Jim Neibaur.
Here's the link for advance tickets.
For more on Harry's career, the book Little Elf: A Celebration Of Harry Langdon by Michael Hayde and Chuck Harter delves into his films in depth and is highly recommended.
One of the 20th century comedy greats, in the cartoon voice world, radio, movies and television was trombonist, vocalist and songwriter Jerry Colonna.
A mainstay of Bob Hope's popular radio show, veteran of numerous USO shows, and later a guest on The Bob Hope Chevy Show, The Colgate Comedy Hour and other television programs, Jerry was born Gerardo Luigi Colonna on September 17, 1904.
Jerry's claims to pop culture immortality include stints playing with the Joe Herlihy Orchestra, as well as the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, which at one point was led by bandleader/composer
Raymond Scott. In the following clip, Jerry follows then-crooner John Payne (a decade before his starring roles in film noir) and the boys in the band.
He recorded with Scott's Quintette, and appeared on radio with Fred Allen, Bing Crosby (as a trombonist with John Scott Trotter's group) and Bob Hope. As a cast member on Hope's NBC radio show, Jerry delivered catchphrases, zingers and ultra-wacky musicality to spare.
The ultimate tribute was paid by the animators at Warner Brothers, who not only caricatured Jerry frequently, but even gave him his own cartoon, directed by Friz Freleng.
Back in big screen glory - Laurel & Hardy tomorrow evening at QED in Astoria, Queens.
The following Saturday, across the country from Astoria, the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum presents Comedy Shorts Night, featuring Charlie Chaplin in The Pawnshop (1916), Buster Keaton in One Week (1920), Charley Chase in His Wooden Wedding (1925) and You’re Darn Tootin’ (1928) starring Laurel & Hardy.
A week later, on the last weekend of September, the museum shall pay tribute to the 1920's comedy headliner for Mack Sennett and First National Pictures (and later, in the 1930's, an inventive story and gag writer for Laurel & Hardy feature films) Harry "The Little Elf" Langdon.
September 10 is World Suicide Prevention Day. First and foremost, the National Suicide Prevention hotline is (800) 273-8255.
Sadly, suicide is a topic which dovetails too often with the focuses of this blog: classic movies, comedy and 20th century show business.
Life is not easy for anyone, but can be particularly harsh on those whose profession is making people laugh on stage and screen.
The Suicide Prevention hotline may well have saved several of this blogger's all-time favorite 20th century performers, directors, writers and filmmakers.
Maybe a hotline or intervention would have averted tragedies involving a number of the greatest laugh-getters to ever star in feature films.
Touched upon this topic last year after the news broke that author/filmmaker/chef Anthony Bourdain and designer Kate Spade had committed suicide. Two years earlier, the death of Robin Williams by suicide was a shocker.
If any readers of this blog find themselves in danger from severe clinical depression and considering suicide, again, the hotline number is (800) 273-8255. Use it. Go there first.
While watching clips from Your Show Of Shows, realized that one of the cast members was born 100 years ago today. That would be the prolific actor, comedian, cartoon voice artist, comedy writer, producer and director Howard Morris (September 4, 1919 – May 21, 2005).
Many of us of a certain age first became familiar with Howard Morris via his memorable pop star character Jet Screamer on The Jetsons.
The Brooklyn-born comedian and director began his career onstage as a classically trained Shakespearian actor.
As a troupe member on Your Show Of Shows and Caesar's Hour, he contributed incendiary performances to dozens of incredibly funny sketches.
Howard's gonzo performance as the indescribable yet quite enthusiastic "Uncle Goopy" is a highlight one of the most celebrated comedy sketches in television history,"This Is Your Story," from Your Show of Shows.
Duo pieces on Your Show Of Shows and Caesar's Hour featuring Howard and Sid Caesar are frequently hilarious. The sheer physical contrast between the two is amazing.
In addition to his numerous performances as an actor and comedian on stage, screen and TV, Morris directed feature films. One of his most memorable was the 1967 comic whodunit Who's Minding The Mint, chock full of wonderful comedians.
Although Mr. Morris directed dozens of TV shows and voiced countless cartoon characters, he is very likely associated most with his portrayal of Ernest T. Bass, the backwoods nut job he played with great relish and enthusiasm in a handful of memorable episodes of The Andy Griffith show. Like Uncle Goopy, the character is funny!
As this blog tends to be very comedy-centric, it's difficult to even come up with a very short list of favorite Hollywood feature films about Labor Day. Documentaries (Barbara Kopple's 1976 film Harlan County, USA) on labor movements, yes, absolutely, but Hollywood movies, besides Martin Ritt's Norma Rae, Paul Schrader's Blue Collar, Norman Jewison's F.I.S.T. (co-written by its star, Sylvester Stallone, with Joe Estherhaus) and John Sayles' Matewan, not so much.
Thinking of the working conditions and the 19th century style approach to employees' rights that spawned the labor movement in the first place, a certain sketch from Your Show Of Shows comes to mind. It's a spoof of the kind of movies made in the first decade of the 20th century, the heydey of Florence Lawrence, the Biograph girl. It both parodies the earliest American narrative movies in a very funny way and points out the kinds of abuses that led to the formation of the labor movement. As usual, the cast of Imogene Coca, Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris is hilarious.
While the 1978 film Norma Rae, starring Sally Field and Beau Bridges, is certainly a stellar flick about the labor movement, here at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog, we like this sendup from SCTV, "My Factory My Self," more. It manages to skewer a bunch of then-trendy movies from that era (including Kramer Vs. Kramer and An Unmarried Woman) and 1970's pop culture cliches mercilessly. Andrea Martin, arguably the greatest living comedienne not named Carol Burnett, is particularly brilliant here.
Early 1930's Warner Brothers/First National features such as Heroes For Sale and Wild Boys Of The Road, gritty Great Depression films about a society in which there were no jobs, tend to be my personal picks for this weekend. Happy Labor Day - and we sincerely hope those of you who are working today are either getting time-and-a-half or double time.
Friday night at 389 Melrose Street in Brooklyn, NY, the final Cartoon Carnival screening of the summer presents nearly two hours of early silent rarities and 1930s classics.
This is show #82 in the Cartoon Carnival series of screenings, featuring animation rarities on glorious 16mm film, curated by Tommy Stathes.
Friday night's program pays tribute to cartoons featuring the sawdust and spectacle of the big top. Mr. Stathes, producer of the Cartoon Roots DVDS which has brought animation rarities to Blu-Ray and DVD, elaborates:
"while I normally don’t publish Cartoon Carnival set lists in advance, I thought I’d share one of my favorite early 1930s circus and clown cartoons. . .This early Van Beuren short is something I grew up watching—and loving—as a toddler on one of those cheap-o public domain VHS collections, where it was actually being passed off as a Mickey Mouse cartoon. I wasn’t complaining then, and I’m still not complaining now."
Cartoon Carnival 82: Clown Town features Betty Boop, Koko the Clown, Felix the Cat, Bobby Bumps, and other cartoon favorites on the big screen, as they were intended to be seen, with an audience ready to laugh. This, in addition to the epic Labor Day weekend Cinecon film festival in Hollywood, will give classic movie buffs on both coasts an opportunity to get together, have fun and see some great vintage entertainment.
Brooklyn will not outdone by this program, as silent comedy export Nelson Hughes returns to Astoria with That Slapstick Show on September 15. The borough will be filled with classic movies, cartoons and laughs!
As of 5:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on August 23, 2019, Godzillafest is back, bombarding San Francisco's Balboa Theatre with three days of big screen fun.
That means 12 classic Godzilla movies on two screens!
Kicking off the festivities will be Frankenstein Conquers The World and War Of The Gargantuas.
Also on Saturday's bill: Godzilla Vs. Megalon, Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, Terror Of Mechagodzilla, Son Of Godzilla and Destroy All Monsters.
There will also be two of my all-time favorites in the genre, Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero and Godzilla Vs. Mothra.
Special guests will include Michael Dougherty, who will m.c. a special screening of the latest in the incorrigible fire-breathing Thunder Lizard's saga, Godzilla King of the Monsters, on Saturday night.
Hosting on both Friday and Saturday Night: Lord Blood-Rah of Lord Blood-Rah's Nerve Wrackin' Theatre and Creatures-Con.
Megalon and Mechagodzilla get the thunder lizard spotlight as the festival progresses and Sunday's lineup will include Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster!
The Balboa Theatre is located on 3630 Balboa Street, between 37th and 38th Avenues, in San Francisco's Outer Richmond district. For more info, go to the Bay Area Film Events website.
The last two posts were about guitarists, so this one will attempt to follow the six string into movies.
Funny, very few movies with "guitar" featured prominently in the title actually show someone playing one, as Jerry Reed does beautifully here.
In Nicholas Ray's indescribable and gender-bending Trucolor western Johnny Guitar, the guitar is emblematic of the character portrayed by Sterling Hayden - and we really want to see him rock out on that axe he's been lugging around.
Of course, if there was an axe in Johnny Guitar, either Joan Crawford or Mercedes McCambridge would plant it in your forehead.
We'll kick this pickin' post off with a couple of cartoons from the Tom & Jerry series created by the production unit led by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera. When it comes to cartoons prominently featuring country-western pickers, Pecos Pest is the Tom & Jerry cartoon that immediately comes to mind. Was it Hanna, Barbera or animators Irv Spence, Ken Muse, Ed Barge and Ray Patterson who were the guitar player and/or country-western music and singing cowboy enthusiasts in that MGM cartoon studio crew?
A key running joke in the Tom & Jerry series involves Jerry Mouse interfering with Tom's best efforts at wooing the gals. In Solid Serenade, Tom plays the upright bass and sings Louis Jordan (the r&b/swing guy of Tympani 5 fame, not the star of Gigi) tunes. Tom doesn't succeed in that cartoon or in the following one. The question is, what country-western star of the day is Tom impersonating in Texas Tom?
One would think numerous jokes about guitar-playing could be found in classic cartoons, but most often this entails only a few seconds of screen time, as is the case with the musical Tex Avery cartoon The Magical Maestro or Bugs Bunny whipping out an acoustic guitar for a single gag in the classic cartoon Slick Hare, directed by Friz Freleng.
A later classic from Friz Freleng and his crew at Warner Brothers, The Three Little Bops, made in 1957, features music by Shorty Baker and story/voice work by Stan Freberg - and, naturally, a brief guitar solo is offered by one of the porcine multi-instrumentalist hipsters who play everything.
Many musical acts appeared in one-reelers such as the Lee Deforest Phonofilms, Vitaphone Varieties and Fox Movietone Musicals in the early years of talkies.
Arguably the first string-meister to whip out a guitar in movies was Roy Smeck, the "Wizard Of The Strings," who made cinematic and sound waves with his Hawaiian guitar in several Vitaphone Varieties, beginning in 1926.
Columbia Pictures made a memorable musical short subject starring country-western star Jimmie Rodgers, a.k.a. The Singing Brakeman.
The first popular guitarist to be seen in feature films was the great Eddie Lang (1902-1933). The guitarist's segment with violinist Joe Venuti in Universal's epic early talkie musical King Of Jazz is still pretty darn astonishing almost 90 years later.
Eddie has some great tunes in The Big Broadcast with songstress Ruth Etting and, soon to be the biggest musical act in show business, Bing Crosby.
Even more stunning than Eddie Lang appearing in movies: a major Paramount Pictures star, Mae West, seen strumming a guitar in Klondike Annie. It doesn't look like Mae is actually playing those tasty single-note lines and chords - there's another guitarist offscreen - but the song and her vocal sound great. Makes one wish she accompanied herself on a musical instrument in more of her movies; after all, Mae mastered everything she tried.
Not long after Bing Crosby and Mae West became movie stars at Paramount in the early 1930's, the phenomenon of the singing cowboys hit the silver screen. Gene Autry was first, soon followed by Roy Rogers, not the current slide guitar ace but the movies' King Of The Cowboys.
A certain young man from Tupelo was a big fan of the singing cowboys and their music - Elvis Aaron Presley.
Of the many feature films Elvis Presley starred in - and he sings and dances in every one - there are few in which he actually plays the guitar, as he does so often in his TV appearances.
Elvis delivers vocal and guitar heroics - while looking great in a suit - in Viva Las Vegas (co-starring with the always formidable Ann-Margret).
Elvis gives us a bit of guitar as well in arguably his best feature film, King Creole, directed by none other than Michael Curtiz.
Elvis also rocks out on the acoustic guitar in G.I. Blues.
Presley's rockabilly contemporaries Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran beat Elvis to the punch, rocking out (as did Little Richard) in The Girl Can't Help It, an amazing musical time capsule and satire of 1950's mores and pop culture directed by Frank Tashlin.
Back to the singing cowboys, Roy Rogers was the rare movie star who could ride, rope, do stunts, sing and play the guitar!
Long after his silver screen and TV careers ended, Roy, along with his intrepid wife and co-star Dale Evans and the never surpassed Badass of the Movie Steeds, Trigger, would wow the crowds at rodeos, county fairs and western movie festivals coast to coast. Both singing cowboys appeared on Late Night With David Letterman (NBC version). Roy, fittingly, finished off his guest appearance with a rendition of "Happy Trails."
Happy Trails to all of you from Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog!
Continuing the thread from the last post, as the following caricature of Django Reinhardt from The Triplets Of Belleville illustrates, we're talking guitarists.
As titled, today's post is devoted to "string swing" - and Django's batting leadoff with some Swing 39.
After Swing 39, it's time for some Swing 42!
Guitar virtuoso Hank Marvin made history, going back to the 1950's days of skiffle, backing British pop star Cliff Richard and personifying classic rock n' roll with his band The Shadows and subsequent groups. The versatile guitarist, 77 and still performing, also plays killer gypsy jazz. He has blazed trails on the guitar in the 20th and 21st centuries.
A guitarist much influenced by Hank Marvin & The Shadows, Tommy Emmanuel, made an appearance in last Sunday's post on jazz-classical guitar genius Lenny Breau, so here he is, with fellow string-meisters Richard Smith and Jim Nichols at the Chet Atkins convention in The Land Of Chet Atkins, Nashville.
Are here's Tommy with frequent collaborator - they made a terrific album together titled The Colonel & The Governor - Martin Taylor.
Been known to binge-watch music clips involving this dynamic duo.
Martin Taylor is yet another virtuoso on the short list of astonishingly good guitarists.
Tommy, Frank and Vinny outdo themselves in the following performance.
Frank's duo with Martin Taylor on "Cherokee" is equally wonderful.
Bringing a post devoted to "swingin' on a six string" full circle, seems fitting to send this out with some more Django - and also recommend checking out some cool Django Reinhardt playlists on YouTube, organized by year.
It would appear that the poster, Mr. Becker, who we think might be a friend of the Reinhardt family, has access to numerous lesser known concerts, airchecks and radio broadcasts the guitar ace did after World War II.
Django always sounds great to the gang at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog.
"Lenny Breau was the best guitarist to ever shit between two boots." Jerry Reed
"Lenny was a comet passing through" Chet Atkins
"If you had dropped a bomb on the place that night you'd have wiped out all the guitar players in the world. They were all down there, from Howard Roberts to George Van Eps to Joe Pass... He conquered Hollywood because we all loved him as a player and we loved him as a person." Carol Kaye
Lenny Breau (1941-1984) was an original and astounding musician, a genius of finger style guitar and one of the greats of the 20th century.
While there have been many brilliant guitarists, from Django Reinhardt to Barney Kessel to Tal Farlow to Herb Ellis to George Benson to Joe Pass to Wes Montgomery to Kenny Burrell to Roy Clark and Hank Garland, only Lenny Breau could delve deeply into a Chet Atkins + J.S. Bach + Bill Evans place.
He could bring the sound of The Bill Evans Trio to the guitar like no another string-master, before or since.
Lenny could nail jazz, country-western, classical, flamenco, you name it, with great sensitivity.
He does more with harmonics alone than most guitar slingers do with 6 (or 7 or 12) strings and 23 frets!
I'll make sure to watch the following YouTube clips of Lenny Breau and the aforementioned guitar genius Tal Farlow playing unbelievably great music together today!
Tommy Emmanuel, in many respects the musician who has carried on and extended the innovative ideas originated by Lenny Breau into the 21st century, reminisces: "I met Lenny in 1980, at Chets' office. The 3 of us jammed for hours then I took Lenny to where he was playing that night. I carried his guitar and amp for him and set it up on the stage. Then I sat at the side and listened intently as Lenny played his way through a set of Jazz standards with a depth and such feeling that I could barely contain my tears and sheer delight in his wonderful soloing. I have never heard anyone do what he did that night, it was a miracle in my eyes! If you've never heard Lenny Breau, then get his "Live at Shelly's Mann Hole " album..Or play Lenny and Chets' version of "Sweet Georgia Brown". It will tell you so much about his brilliance...Tommy CGP."
Lenny's daughter Emily Hughes has produced two documentaries about her father.
The two films can be purchased or rented at lennybreau.com.
Thanks to the research and archive-digging involved in the making of these documentaries, never before seen footage of Lenny, such as the following, continues to turn up.
Here, Tommy Emmanuel pays tribute to Lenny Breau with some remembrances and this terrific song. Enjoy!
And enjoy Lenny Breau's records, too!
While the ace guitarist, as Wes and Django did, left this planet WAY too soon, at least, largely due to the excellent work and steadfast support of his friend and mentor Chet Atkins, Lenny waxed quite a few outstanding records. The following duo with clarinetist Brad Terry, The Complete Living Room Tapes, is one of his best.
To that, we music aficionados at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog say Mo' Breau, please.
Tomorrow afternoon, That Slapstick Show celebrates its 5th anniversary show with a special screening of unseen American silent comedies from the Library Of Congress, with live musical accompaniment by Charlie Judkins. Opening up the show: ragtime musical performer Miss Maybell. It all kicks off Friday afternoon at 4:30pm EST at the comedy club venue known as QED. Curated and hosted by Nelson Hughes and co-hosted by Tommy Jose Stathes.
On a Sunday in which Hudson Valley temps hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit - rough on this "weather wuss" San Francisco Bay Area native - and physical energy is definitely flagging, we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are reminiscing about a dynamic duo that, like Adam West and Burt Ward, resolutely does not fall into the love 'em or hate 'em category: George Burns & Gracie Allen.
So today, while guzzling one cold drink after another, we continue the topic of comedy teams from our previous post - and find ourselves fondly remembering George and Gracie, who are still loved, almost 55 years after Gracie's passing.
We've posted the first Burns & Allen silver screen appearance, performing their vaudeville routine in Lamb Chops, Vitaphone Varieties #891, released October 14, 1929, at least three or four (or five) times on this blog. Never tire of seeing it!
The team began their movie career at Paramount Pictures, where, in 1930-1933, they starred in a series of very funny 1-reelers, some involving a "breaking the fourth wall" concept that would continue into their radio and television careers.
By the time Burns & Allen had made a few of these Paramount short subjects, they were regulars on radio's Guy Lombardo show. They would get their own popular radio show in September 1934.
The short subjects and success on radio led to appearances in a slew of Paramount features, starting with The Big Broadcast and including such comedian-packed movies as International House and Six Of A Kind.
Could George and Gracie sing and dance? You bet they could! Here they are, keeping up with none other than Fred Astaire in A Damsel In Distress!
A mystery novel, The Gracie Allen Murder Case, was penned by novelist S.S. Van Dine, with Gracie herself assisting super-sleuth Philo Vance on the whodunit. It would be reprised as a movie.
The Gracie Allen Murder Case even inspired a board game.
Gracie sings, dances and gets big laughs as an ace supporting player - for the most part unaccompanied by George - in the Eleanor Powell MGM musical Honolulu. This was the last feature film appearance by Burns & Allen.
Meanwhile, Gracie tired of the intense schedule involved in doing the movie shoots, so the team renewed their energies on the radio show.
Their success on radio led to a television show that ran for eight seasons.
Anyone who has been lucky enough to enjoy at least a somewhat successful marriage or long-term relationship/partnership can relate to the following song, a great one George & Gracie performed lovingly on The Burns & Allen Show
Sometimes, George & Gracie would be guest stars on other TV and radio programs.
George is the guest star on a particularly wonderful and hilarious Jack Benny Program - needs to be seen from start to finish! Gracie (voice only), in one of her last show business appearances, has a very brief but memorable cameo.
While, admittedly, we're a couple of days late to celebrate the birthday of Gracie Allen (July 26, 1895), paying tribute to this wonderful and original comedy team pleases the old time radio and classic movie nuts at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog no end.
In 13 years and 1072 posts, only once has this blogger ever gone as far as to delete a post years in retrospect. Said piece was posted way back in 2012. Unwisely titled "Worst Comedy Team Ever," its topic was the comedy team of Frank Mitchell (1905-1991) & Jack Durant (1905-1984). The post elicited such an outraged and angry response from an avid fan of the duo that Mr. Blogmeister opted to delete the post.
The super-fan of Mitchell & Durant either did not actually read the post or did and totally missed its point and ironic tone (which was that I actually liked the acrobatic team and found their roughhouse act, which makes The Three Stooges directed by Jules White look like Noël Coward, quite funny), got personal and took pot shots at the guy who writes a blog that is so under-the-radar that radar has declared it "missing."
This sort of thing happens. I saw two members of a classic comedy group on social media go at it over the topic of Jerry Lewis vs Jacques Tati, causing one of them (the Jerry fan, very likely a personal friend of the comedian or his family) to leave distraught and practically in tears. I don't get it. It's comedy and what makes a person laugh is subjective. Why this is something to fight over, I don't know. Seems like everyone is angry these days, partly due to a media and internet landscape that thrives (and makes big buck$$$$$) on getting as many people as possible liquored up on never-ending conflict and hate. Strongly suggest eliminating or dramatically curtailing time spent on social media and surfing that growingly ugly web, as well as throwing your TV sets out the window a la SCTV.
Whatever the offended Mitchell & Durant #1 fan thought, this comedy buff saw their knockabout act in a 1931 Paramount Pictures 1-reeler, one of two short subjects they starred in, the other being Girl Trouble (1933) a Vitaphone musical shot in 2-strip Technicolor.
It was titled A Pair Of French Heels, and I found Mitchell & Durant's slapstick, which included a "butt-kicking at the swanky party" segment, hilarious. Many film buffs do not. Leonard Maltin, in his Movie Comedy Teams book, definitely did not. I recall the extremely knowledgeable silent era and early talkie screen comedy expert Richard M. Roberts describing A Pair Of French Heels as awful and possibly the single worst comedy short he had ever seen. Probably the best point of comparison would be The Three Stooges.
Oddly enough, after Mitchell & Durant broke up, Frank Mitchell would appear as a supporting actor in Three Stooges comedies, including one of their better "Shemp era" pieces of slam-bang slapstick, Goof On The Roof - and even very briefly worked in the 1970's as part of a "New Stooges" team with Mousie Garner and ex-Stooge Joe DeRita.
Kicking off this Comedy Rorschach Test about polarizing comics, those performers who people either love or can't stand, we shall start by asking just who the comedy team of Mitchell & Durant were, anyway? They were a 100% slapstick acrobatic knockabout comedy team from vaudeville, and started (as Clark & McCullough did) as tumblers. If Mitchell & Durant recall anyone, that would be Martin & Lewis - but Dean & Jerry were downright genteel by comparison and did not do somersaults at will.
The duo also express a - shall we say - combative relationship with each other also seen in the top box office movie comedy team of the 1940's, Bud Abbott & Lou Costello.
Mitchell & Durant were cast as comic relief in a trio of Alice Faye musicals produced by Fox and directed by George Marshall, who helmed everything from Laurel & Hardy and Thelma Todd-Zasu Pitts 2-reelers to Destry Rides Again.
Along with Bebe Daniels, who reprises her Dorothy LeBrock egomaniac diva role from 42nd Street, the team co-stars with Alice in Music Is Magic.
Mitchell & Durant actually have parts throughout the movie.
The team even does a slapstick dance routine with the star.
There's only one cut to a stunt double for Ms. Faye, the queen of 1930's Fox musicals, in the routine. Music Is Magic represents the team's high point as comic relief in feature films.
Frank Mitchell & Jack Durant met at the gym and there is a certain "boxers turned comedians" dynamic that is demonstrated emphatically in all the team's silver screen appearances.
Characterization. . . well, let's just say it is not a priority.
In the Fox Films contribution to topical Great Depression musicals, Stand Up And Cheer, none other than Warner Baxter is the figurehead star presiding over a three ring circus which includes, among numerous other performers and actors, Mitchell & Durant.
Wonder just how Warner Baxter ended up in the delirious and super-topical musical fantasy Stand Up And Cheer!, a.k.a. The Fox Follies and Fox Movietone Follies Of 1934, a fascinating Great Depression era train wreck if there ever was one, after starring as the ailing and obsessed dance director Julian March in 42nd Street.
While the film remains, as many revue musicals of the late 1920's and first half of the 1930's are, an entertainingly incoherent mishmash, one thing Stand Up And Cheer has going for it is Great Depression themed musical numbers.
As fate would have it in 2019, the one example of Mitchell & Durant's physical comedy mojo that's up on YouTube is from Stand Up And Cheer. The duo plays Senators Danforth and Short, who throw each other around mercilessly while discussing policy. Warner Baxter might as well say "if you'll excuse me, I have some very important auditions and must leave so the two of you can beat the crap out of each other for no apparent reason." The routine works due to the contrast between the civilized dialogue and the wildly outrageous physical comedy.
That scene features some of the heaviest heavy duty knockabout and somersaults seen on the silver screen since Roscoe Arbuckle, Al St. John and Buster Keaton threw each other around with utter abandon in such accurately titled comedies as Rough House. I'll admit it, Mitchell & Durant make me laugh. Like the other comedy team that frequently provided comic relief in Fox musicals, The Ritz Brothers, I don't know exactly why they make me laugh, they just do . . . with the proviso that Mitchell & Durant are among the 99.5% of comedians who do not come close to the comic genius of Harry Ritz.
Stand Up And Cheer also includes the feature film debut of the Fox studio's megastar-to-be Shirley Temple, IMHO a non-polarizing figure - and spoofed beautifully 40+ years later by comedienne Laraine Newman.
It's tough to find clips of Mitchell & Durant doing their brand of slapstick in Alice Faye musicals on YouTube, Vimeo or DailyMotion.com. Have not seen these films on TCM, either. Curiously, either Mitchell & Durant or Alice Faye's mid-1930's Fox features appear to have fans in Eastern Europe. . .
Their last appearance as a comedy team was in the Al Jolson WB vehicle The Singing Kid, a movie in which swing legend Cab Calloway and the very funny humorous musical act The Yacht Club Boys were also in the cast. After Mitchell and Durant broke up in 1938, they both would go on to work in show business. The former's superb riding skills earned him parts in westerns, and in a continuing role as the sidekick Cannonball in 1940's oaters starring Tex Ritter and Bill Elliott, while the latter had a part in the flawed but fascinating WW2 espionage thriller Journey Into Fear, directed by Norman Foster and Orson Welles for RKO - and even did a cameo appearance in episode 112 of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.
A well-researched post by author Trav S.D. on Travalanche elaborates on their careers. Equally informative: Aaron Neathery's terrific article about Frank Mitchell & Jack Durant from May 9, 2006, titled What made pistachio nuts?, which posted on his gone but not forgotten The Third Banana blog.
When it comes to comics who elicit "love 'em or hate 'em" responses, there's the always-seagoing star of 1920's Christie Comedies known as "The Goofy Gob," Billy Dooley (1893-1938), before movies part of a vaudeville team with dancer Frances Lee. Some silent movie fans like him a lot, others find Mr. Dooley about as funny as a colonoscopy without anesthesia. So, readers, watch The Goofy Gob and see for yourself.
How does a Billy Dooley comedy go over on the big screen with an audience? This writer and programmer of classic movie presentations has not shown a Billy Dooley 2-reeler to a group and admittedly does not know the answer to that question. Could it be that The Goofy Gob gets big laughs? Watching a comedy film at home by yourself as opposed to in a theatre with an audience remain two entirely different experiences.
Billy Dooley was strongly influenced by a comic who could be considered #1 on the list of "love 'em or can't stand 'em" comics: Harry Langdon (1884-1944) a.k.a. The Little Elf.
The minimalistic Harry Langdon was a true eccentric, both in characterization and the bold originality of his performance, as well as the closest of all the comedians not named Chaplin, Keaton or Lloyd to attaining a kind of mega-stardom in silent features. Unorthodox & unconventional was Harry's modus operandi.
After his 1927-1928 starring vehicles Three's A Crowd, The Chaser and Heart Trouble bombed at the box office, Harry continued to work steadily, but was largely relegated to short subjects and character roles in features. Throughout Langdon's career, his characterization, acting and comic timing were highly original, ultra-quirky and most idiosyncratic. This classic comedy buff finds him devastatingly funny.
Said characterization proved especially problematic for moviegoers when Harry transitioned from silents into talkies. It was one thing to see his otherworldly "little elf" character malfunction in a silent and yet another thing to see and hear his bizarre spin on "reasoning" in a talkie.
Watching Harry talking to himself and plunging into truly cosmic befuddlement in his early sound films may well have proved disturbing and unfunny for 1929 moviegoers, as well as to latter-day film historians, but (then as now) can provoke others to laugh in astonishment at Langdon's brilliance. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't - but Harry is always taking risks as an actor, comedian and pantomimist.
Among the 2-reel comedies of the silent and early talkie eras, the much-maligned 1929-1930 Hal Roach Studio series still remains quite the Rorschach Test. Some will see Harry's fearlessness and determination to stick with his bizarre little character as pure comedy genius. Others - and that would be many classic comedy buffs - will see a performer smashing boundaries and experimenting with offbeat ideas way beyond the point where the results are funny.
Modern day historians have been less given to accepting the conventional wisdom about Harry Langdon's career and work in both silent and sound films; such scholarly articles as The Case For Harry Langdon: How and Why Frank Capra Was Wrong by Ben Urich indicate that a fresh and long overdue reevaluation is finally underway.
Many of Harry Langdon's sound films will be shown as part of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum's tribute to The Little Elf on the last weekend of September.
The only post-modern comic who strikes this scribe as even a bit Langdon-esque, albeit within a much more aggressive characterization, would be standup comedian/performance artist Andy Kaufman (1938-1984). The difference between the two was that Harry enjoyed toying with his performance and timing, in slowing things down and getting deeply into his extremely odd little character, while Andy's m.o. was to deliberately antagonize the audience. That said, Harry Langdon's experimentation and willingness to stretch a scene out does have a way of antagonizing audiences (if not the writer of this blog).
There are lots of polarizing Rorschach Test funsters, many more than could be discussed in one or two blog posts. Of the comedians from silents, Roscoe Arbuckle, Larry Semon, Jimmy Aubrey, Musty Suffer and such amoral slash-and-burn characters as the L-Ko studio's Billie "The Man From Nowhere" Ritchie and Kalem's scurrilous Ham & Bud (the scuzzy team played with rancid relish by Lloyd Hamilton and Bud Duncan) would fall into that category.
Another comedy team in the "love 'em or hate 'em" category would be the stars of Fox and RKO films, Bobby Clark & Paul McCullough.
Frantic Bobby Clark has been described as "Groucho without the warmth" and Paul McCullough, in the later RKO films, is overpowered by his wisecracking partner. The aggressively uncuddly team, much more than The Three Stooges and Mitchell & Durant, demonstrates a decidedly dark sensibility.
All that said, do we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog find Clark & McCullough funny? Yes, often very much so!
Do we wish 35mm nitrate prints of more long-missing films from Clark & McCullough's 1928-1929 Fox series would turn up perfectly preserved in a cold dark cave somewhere? Double yes!
Of course, leading the Technicolor wing of Rorschach Test comedians would be Ben Blue and Red Skelton!
In addition, singer-comedienne Cass Daley, Danny Kaye, Joe Penner, The Ritz Brothers, Pinky Lee, standup comedienne Phyllis Diller, Benny Hill and most of all Jerry Lewis immediately come to mind.
As fate and film history would have it, Frank Mitchell appears in Lewis' 1970 film Which Way To The Front, the ultimate Rorschach Test feature comedy. Abomination or classic comedy? You decide!
In more recent memory (but still in the 20th century), Pee-Wee Herman, Pauly Shore, Andrew Dice Clay and Jim Carrey would most certainly be Rorschach Test comics. Yep. . . So what? We encourage readers to have fun and laughs with your favorite comedians and comediennes. Enjoy Comedy Tonight!
Or be ready for Don Rickles to come back from the dead and insult you!
