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Reviews
Odor in the Court (1934)
"Never a Help; always a hindrance.
Based on their three dozen short films of various lengths for RKO, Bobby Clark (he of the greasepaint eyeglasses, flourishing a cigar, was the center of the act. Paul McCullough, dressed like superannuated fraternity nitwit, took the role of an overgrown puppy happily following alpha dog Clark through various rambunctious adventures that justified their billing; "Never a help; always a hindrance." Clark & McCullough had been a team since boyhood-in circus, burlesque, vaudeville and Broadway revues and musical comedies. According to some who saw the partners before they won the big-time, claimed Paul McCullough originally was the duo's lead. Both circus trained, Clark especially manifested physical agility in their films. Gradually Paul slipped out of the spotlight into a supporting role that gave Bobby someone to pitch to who could catch.
Odor in the Court sounds like a Three Stooges film, but plays more madcap surreal--like Olsen & Johnson. Bobby Clark and Groucho Marx were considered to portray similar comic sociopaths. (Which came first: Bobby Clark's use of greasepaint eyeglasses or Groucho's greasepaint moustache? Clark & McCullough are several rungs above the Stooges, and several floors above the ill-matched and earthbound Wheeler & Woolsey. Odor in the Court (and Alibi Bye Bye) make fast-moving, zany introductions to Clark & McCullough.
Stand-In (1937)
Smart Hollywood satire; top-notch pairing of Leslie Howard & Joan Blondell
Tay Garnett was one of the better, now-forgotten directors. After studying at MIT and serving as a pilot in World War I, Garnet debuted in the film industry as a gagman, graduated to screenwriter and then a director competent and comfortable with any style of movies from comedy to drama to film noir to Westerns. Independent producer Walter Wanger hired Garnett to direct Stand-In, a combination screwball comedy and a satire of Hollywood. Wanger provided the director with two stunning costars, Leslie Howard and Joan Blondell, and a fine supporting cast, headed by Humphrey Bogart, Alan Mowbray and Jack Carson, and peopled with character actors such as Charles Middleton (Emperor Ming in the Flash Gordon chapter play), silent stars Tully Marshall and Mary MacLaren, and dependable regulars Esther Howard, J. C. Nugent and Olin Howland. It's a shame that Joan Blondell and Leslie Howard never made another comedy—indeed any kind of movie, because the two pros play off each other as brightly and snappily as Hepburn and Tracy, William Powell & Myrna Loy, or Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Rosalind Russell, Ginger Rogers, James Stewart or Jean Arthur. Other reviewers have made clear the plot, and a couple have decried the rushed turnabout ending. Perhaps producer Wanger didn't want the film to run more than an hour and a half. Or maybe Tay Garnett took a hand in the adaptation of the novel and bent the story to the progressive politics of FDR's newly inaugurated second term. (Stand- In was adapted from a novel by politically conservative Clarence Budington Kelland.) In either case, Mr. Howard's reticent efficiency expert rescues Colossal Studios—not only for the bankers who hired him, but also more for the many workers who would lose their jobs at the studio in the middle of the Great Depression. Clever comedy actors and an experiences director put over a witty screenplay. Good fun, smart and snappy.
Pack Up Your Troubles (1939)
Ritz' swan song at Fox, but film better than it reputation.
Pack up Your Troubles is a joint vehicle for spunky, talented Jane Withers and zany comedy masters, The Ritz Brothers, Zanuch short- changed the Ritz Brothers (who intended to leave Fox" by second billing them to young Miss Withers. Jane performs a musical number and an impersonation of George M. Cohan (who was still well-known in 1939) and Eva Tanguay, the biggest of vaudeville headliners, but unknown by 1939. The Ritzes open the movie with A comedy and song routine that is supposed to tell the film audience why they could no longer get vaudeville gigs and thus had to join the Army to keep body and soul together. Sadly that is the last time we get to see a Ritz routine, so there is no precision dancing. Pack up Your Troubles seems less like a 20th Century Fox film than one from Universal, the boys' next studio, but it is better than its reputation. By the way, demeaning the Ritz Brothers is a demonstration of poor judgment. They may not be to everyone's taste, but Harry Ritz, along with Chaplin, Frank Fay and Ted Healy were the four most influential comedians of their era to other comedians. Ask Mel Brooks.
Paris pieds nus (2016)
New Addition to all-time list of Greatest Comedy Films
The Albuquerque Film Club just finished a twice-daily four-day run of the French-Belgian comedy, Lost in Paris (Paris pied nus). In the AFC's five years' of presenting nearly eighty films, seldom have we had as enthusiastic response to any film of any era or any nation. Literally hundred of patrons thanked the Guild Cinema management or me (the host) and said that Lost in Paris was wonderful, and many added was the best comedy they had seen in ages. Why? Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon, the husband & wife team at the center of Lost in Paris are very likely the most inventive, joyful and brilliant comedians in movies today. They studied physical comedy with famed Jacques Lecoq, but they are also skilled handling dialogue. Both look like ordinary people, as most of us do, but a bit stranger; still they make a believable and attractive romantic duo. Fiona plays a spinster librarian, brought from arctic Canada to Paris by a distress letter from her elderly aunt (played by French film icon Emmanuelle Riva (aged 88). There Fiona encounters Dom Abel, a bohemian scrounging the leftovers of Parisian life, not because he is society's cast- off, but because he is happy to be footloose and a bit of a rascal. I've now seen Lost in Paris four times. I laughed heartily at each showing, but by the third and fourth I was able to recognize how brilliantly constructed the script was, how well placed were the 'big moments', and how craftily Sandrine Deegan edited the film. Many comedians undermine themselves by trying to write, direct and star. In Lost in Paris, Dom and Fiona excel at all three skills. The ABQ Film Club Has Already booked their 2011 equally hilarious film, The Fairy (La Fee) for November 2017. Don't miss either movie.
Okja (2017)
They Never Made Movies this, Truly
A stirring and compassionate film. I can do little but chorus the praise other reviewers have given this film, the director, the actors and CG craftspeople. The subject matter ism one that studios have avoided for ever. Even religionists and most moralists have not dared take it on. Everyone's heart must have been in this film.
The Three Musketeers (1939)
Superb cast in Abbreviated Dumas adventur
The only way to make a bad movie out of The Three Musketeers is to cast Charlie Sheen in it as they did in 1993. Note to other reviewers: EVERY filmed version of this Dumas' tale has to be a chop job—unless it becomes a multi-episode cable TV series. Note #2: most classics get spoofed (think how delightfully well Mel Brooks has done with Life of Brian, Frankenstein, Dracula, Robin Hood. Few actors of his day could surpass Don Ameche for versatility (singer, physical actor, comedy actor), and Binnie Barnes rivals any other female actor who's played Lady d'Winter, and she proved a fine foil for the Ritz Brothers. Add John Carradine and Lionel Atwill for villainy and we have a fine cast of pros. As to the Ritz Brothers, they were superb talents: precision dancers, singers and comedians who were among the highest paid revue and nightclub acts in the USA. Like many variety comedians (Beatrice Lillie, Bert Lahr, The Wiere Brothers, Shaw & Lee, Jimmy Savo), it was difficult to adapt narrative material for three surreal madcaps like the Ritzes. The Three Musketeers is enjoyable not only because of Ameche, Barnes, Carradine and Atwill, but for the bright and witty story curve fielded by Al, Harry & Jimmy Ritz. The Three Musketeers does not showcase the Ritzes at their best (see: You Can't Have Everything; Sing, Baby, Sing; and On the Avenue. Pass on The Gorilla; it doesn't merit anyone's consideration. But The Three Musketeers may be their best film in overall quality—after all, it was directed by Allan Dwan (who helmed the Doug Fairbanks version). Frank Cullen founder: ABQ Film Club and American Vaudeville Museum author: Vaudeville Old & New (Routledge 2007).