See America Thirst a pre-code comedy with Harry Langdon, Slim Summerville

Review by Doug Gibson

Back in California, and that means a trip to UCLA’s Film & Television Archive to view a mostly-lost film. Harry Langdon was the subject again (two years ago I saw and reviewed My Weakness). This time I viewed a version of Harry’s 1930 Universal “buddy-comedy” film, See America Thirst, directed by William James Craft. It’s a thrill for me to see Harry’s hard-to-find films; next on my bucket list will be a trip to the Library of Congress to see the Hal Roach shorts that lack sound discs.

Speaking of sound, one mild disappointment is that the archive’s print lacked any. And the print I viewed was clearly a sound print. There was way too much talking, and no titles that would have clued a silent version. I know that a version of See America Thirst with sound has played film festivals. I don’t know if UCLA has it or it was my fault when I requested the film. Did I choose a silent version?

The print was in very poor shape, muddy, blurry at times with a couple of vertical jumps and rough transitions. But that didn’t bother me, it adds to the excitement of  viewing a film that is virtually lost and appreciation to the archive for preserving it.

So, here’s my synopsis of the film. To help overcome the dialogue loss, I re-read my friend Ed Watz’ recap of the film in my friend Michael Hayde's biography of Langdon with Chuck Harter, The Little Elf. I also received some input from another friend, artist Nicole Arciola, who has seen the sound version of See America Thirst.

Harry and co-star Slim Summerville are hobos on a train. They get kicked off and try to regroup. They see some sheep and find ducks. Later they encounter an inquisitive police officer. Harry tries to hide the duck (similar to a scene in “Tramp Tramp Tramp”) and fails. The cop chases them and the hobos hide in the back of a truck that is carrying bootleg liquor and driven by hoodlums. A pair of other hoodlums in a vehicle chase them. Gunfire ensues. Harry and Slim are oblivious to it all. A carrying bag falls into the back. Alcohol leaks onto both hobos and they get drunk. A grenade in the back goes off and the vehicle explodes on a bridge. Harry and Slim fall into a river. Harry swims with exaggerated speed to the shore. (Reading Watz I learned that Harry said he couldn’t swim and Summerville said he’d better learn fast.) On the shore the pair discover the bag that fell into the back. It is stuffed with a fortune in cash. As Arciola noted to me, Harry says “Money money money” in much the same manner he did in the last film he made, Pistol Packin’ Nitwits.

Now rich, the former hobos are living it up, renting vehicles, dressed to the nines and going to gangster nightclubs. But the money belonged to the Spumoni crime family and the boss wants it back. After telling the hood who lost the money to take a gun and kill himself (which leads to a lame joke from the returning hood that he missed), Spumoni assigns a hired killer to take out Harry and Summerville at the nightclub.

Singing at the nightclub is a beautiful blonde, played by starlet of the era Bessie Love, who is also apparently a hoodlum’s moll. She’s very scantily dressed in the pre-code manner. After her song the killer approaches the pair. Once they are aware they are being hunted, Harry trembles. Ironically, shaking is a trait used by an even more fearsome killer who is hunting the hired killer. Believing that both Harry and Summerville want to kill them, the hoods pay a fortune to Harry and Summerville so THEY WON’T KILL THEM. (During this scene, a sign in the nightclub switches from TAXI, to AMBULANCE, and finally to HEARSE. The humorous sign switch is supposed to indicate the peril facing Harry and Summerville).

What follows is a series of sometimes amusing scenes where Harry and Summerville are catered to by the hoods, encounter “gangster-friendly” lodgings with armored protection for the beds and disguised platters of food that really contain weapons that fire when the covering is removed. One sequence that lasts way too long, losing its comedy value due to the poor pacing, is Summerville discovering cannons that move and jut outside the windows of a high-rise. Harry, sitting on a cannon, almost falls off, then Summerville almost falls off, and they eventually create a sort of bridge that allows them to hop to another floor. Also, the pair romance the beautiful blonde (Bessie Love) who tells then she’s really a law enforcement agent trying to gather evidence against the Spumonis.

As the film nears its climax, the Spumoni leader, vacationing in Florida, meets up with the real killer they think Harry is. As a result, all the gangsters in Chicago, Spumoni and the rival gang, team up to kill Harry and Summerville, who are in an armored vehicle on the street, expecting, with Bessie Love, to see and be protected from a gang fight. Instead all the gangsters head for the vehicle.

It seems all over for Harry and Summerville, except (and sans sound I’m unsure a bit of how this developed) a professor has invented knockout gas that can be sprayed on the bad guys. Harry and Slim manage to do this and leave all the gangsters unconscious on the streets. (Now Ed Watz is no fan of this film, but he acknowledges that a scene in which Harry, who has run out of the gas -- accepts that his finger used as a spray gun has knocked out the bad guys – is well done. Actually, Summerville is on a canopy spraying away. It is a funny “Little Elf” moment in the film.

Another strong moment in the film is when near the end where Harry, expecting to see his beloved Bessie Love, encounters her in the arms of her fiancé, the District Attorney. This is very similar in pathos to the same type of scene in “Three’s  A Crowd.”

The epilogue involves the pair, with ragged clothes after the battle, discovering that the carrying case full of money now has no money; they lost it. In another decent “Little Elf” moment, Harry wags his finger in disapproval at Summerville, and money comes out of his cuffs. It’s discovered that the money is sown into Harry’s clothes. The pair leave still rich. The End.

Watz is correct in his assessment that the 75-minute film is at times poorly paced. Some of the gags are very forced but the last 10 minutes, in my opinion, are very strong. Watz believes the film is one of Harry’s worst performances. I can’t agree or disagree without hearing the sound. Just watching the visual action, Harry seems more expressive than Summerville, who is more of a straight man. Bessie Love is a very attractive presence, but her part is very small for a third-billed leading lady. Reviews that are cited in “The Little Elf” range from acceptable to the reviewers quite liking the film.

The viewer gets the impression that some of the comedy scenes may be based on vaudeville skits that Harry and Summerville maybe performed in the past. At least scenes are played as if they might have been vaudeville skits. Some of the pair’s banter when romancing Bessie Love plays like that as well as scenes such as the boys getting drunk.

The sets and locations in See America Thirst are above average. There are modernistic sets, particularly in the lodgings of the gangsters. The hoods are played for laughs, as is prohibition, which existed when the film was made. Even with a muddy print, Harry looks healthy and young in the film.

Some old hands in the cast include Stanley Fields and Tom Kennedy as well as a very young Walter Brennan.

If you are in Southern California, go to UCLA and see this film, and My Weakness. It’s not at all difficult to make an appointment to see these almost-lost movies, and the staff at the university library is very helpful. 

(The See America First photos used in this review are courtesy of Richard Finegan).

Peach-O-Reno a great intro to Wheeler and Woolsey

By Doug Gibson

Until a few years ago, I hadn't had much experience watching the old-time vaudeville/film comedian team of Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey, but I'm glad I was introduced in full to the pair in "Peach-O-Reno," released by RKO Radio Pictures on Christmas Day 1931. This pre-code musical comedy with the team is simply marvelous. I tag it as a lower-brow (and that's not an insult) Marx Brothers-type film. It's very fast-paced, extremely witty, and has many fun musical numbers as well.

The plot involves Wheeler and Woolsey as Reno divorce lawyers Wattles and Swift. They have snagged all the divorce business in Reno, the divorce capital of the world because they keep it cheap and, let's face it, they're the wittiest divorce lawyers in town. They're also the coolest. The pair turns their divorce factory into a swinging casino at night. Wattles is the young attorney who more ladies swoon over. Swift, with his wit and fast moves, probably gets more action with the women.

One day, Joe and Aggie Bruno head to Reno -- in separate train seats -- to divorce. They squabbled on their 25th anniversary. Not far behind them are daughters Prudence and Pansy, trying to stop the divorce. The four naturally end up at Wattles and Swift, who have a full house, which includes a rich cowboy type who intends to murder Wattles and Swift for trying to give his wife a divorce.

I'm not going to give away the entire plot. Just sit back and enjoy the hour and three minutes. Things move from the divorce office to the casino, where young Wattles (Wheeler) dresses in drag to avoid the jealous husband. This pre-code sequence is absolutely hilarious, especially while Swift swiftly tries to gain lip time with one of the Bruno daughters. Eventually, everything gets settled in divorce court the next morning, which changes to a marriage court.

There's beautiful women, who change from their usher duties in the divorce office to more scantily clad duties in the casino at night. There's lots of gunfire but no one really gets injured. There's excellent Groucho Marx-type banter from Swift (Woolsey) with more than a few customers, including the matronly Aggie Bruno (Cora Witherspoon), and of course, there's several excellent musical numbers.

I'm glad we have Turner Classic Movies to show these films, and remind us of the many comedy talents that were out there besides the most famous, such as Chaplin, The Marx Brothers, etc. Viewers will enjoy "Preach-O-Reno," and like myself, start looking for more Wheeler and Woolsey to enjoy. It was directed by William A. Seiter. The imdb page is here. To learn more about the comedy team, go to this interview with W&W historian Ed Watz.

Bert Wheeler in the short Innocently Guilty

It's time for another installment in our occasional series of those old-time Columbia comedy shorts that are not well known (think all of them save the Three Stooges.) Today we recall "Innocently Guilty," a 1951 two-reeler that starred Bert Wheeler. Above is a still from the climax of the short. Yes, Bert was hiding in a baby carriage.

Some information about Bert Wheeler. He was a big name in the 1920s on the vaudeville stage and achieved even more fame on the big screen as the boyish half of Wheeler and Woolsey. They made a slew of wonderful comedy films for several years that made a lot of money. After Robert Woolsey died Wheeler's screen career faded and although a working actor, he was struggling to earn a living by 1950, working in summer stock, etc.

As Ed Watz and Ted Okuda note in their book, "The Columbia Comedy Shorts," the head man at Columbia's comedy shorts, Jules White liked to sign former comedy names to two-picture deals, with an option for more if the shorts caught the public's fancy. White, who directed "Innocently Guilty," is quoted in the book as saying, "I gave him (Wheeler) a job at a time nobody else wanted him." Wheeler only made two shorts for Columbia. The second, in 1951, is called "The Awful Sleuth." (I have not seen that one.) "Innocently Guilty" is mediocre, although Wheeler acts well in it. The fault lies in a mediocre script and director White, who often equated humiliation and violence with humor. Only the Three Stooges were consistently able to take such direction and turn it into quality humor.

The short, which Okuda and Watz note had already been filmed twice with Andy Clyde as "It Always Happens" (1935) and "His Tale is Told," (1944) is remade with Wheeler as Hodkinson G. Pogglebrewer, tractor salesman, leaving his happy home to pitch tractors in the big city to Mr. Bass (the perennial Vernon Dent). Old Hodkinson has an appealing wife, Helen, played by another Columbia perennial supporting player, Christine McIntyre. Unfortunately, the script calls for Hodkinson to have a pathologically suspicious sister-in-law, Marge (Margie Listz), used by White for slapstick physical humor.

Once in the big city Hodkinson helps a sexy woman, Fifi (Nanette Bordeaux)  in the hotel, in her room, with an innocent task. Unfortunately, his crazy sister in law has dragged his wife to spy on him. Catching hubby looking compromised with another woman, she plans to divorce him but quickly changes her mind. All seems OK except that the next day, Hodkinson, to get a sale, pretends to be a ladies man to Bass. He even lies about what happened with Fifi. Bass admits to Hodkinson that he's so jealous of perceived male attention to his wife he'd commit violence if confronted with it.

You guessed it folks, Fifi is Mr.  Bass' wife. And with the imagination of Jules White, Fifi, sans outer clothing, Mr. Bass, and Hodkinson all end up in a car together. Fifi gets back to her room undetected, followed for some reason by Hodkinson, and then followed by pathological Margie and Helen, and finally by Bass, now prepared to kill Hodkinson.

None of this is terribly funny. The short ends inconclusively, with Bass shooting at the fleeing, dressed-as-a-baby Hodkinson. White was known for ending shorts with the stars running away, the conflict unresolved.

So why did I still enjoy the short? It's a part of history, a starring big-screen role for Wheeler late in his career. And Bert Wheeler is indeed good in the short. Even a decade-plus after the glory days, he retains the boyish, aw-shucks, optimistic charm that he had with RKO in the 1930s. He's likable. He's just shoved into an awful script and a poor choice for a director.

It's' also fun to see veterans McIntrye and Dent in any Columbia short, although this is far from their best work. Dent, in particular, is far too passive in his opening scene to be accepted later as a husband jealous enough to kill. Both Dent and Liszt take their knocks more than once as foils for physical humor. Early in the film water from a store awning knocks Liszt for a loop, and of course actors take tumbles in the bathroom scene. It's also nice to see silent star Heinie Conklin in a small supporting role as the janitor.

I was able to see this film thanks to Greg Hilbrich, who runs The Columbia Shorts Department website, which is just full of information all things Columbia comedy shorts. The short is posted on Hilbrich's Facebook wall. It's come to my attention he soon plans to post it on The Shorts Department YouTube page and once that occurs, I will embed the short here.

The Harry Langdon Scrapbook captures the feel of vintage comedy

Review by Doug Gibson

Harry Langdon Jr., whose father, film comedian Harry Langdon will be dead 73 years this December, recalls as a very young child visiting the set of "Zenobia," (1939)  in which his dad starred with Oliver Hardy. As Langdon Jr. recounts, he was given a handful of double-headed nails by a stage worker. Perplexed at the oddly shaped nails, his father explained to Junior that they were used to make it easier to tear down sets.

"Nothing on a stage is permanent," Langdon senior told his son.

That phrase is the title of a book released last year from Walker-Anthony Books, "Nothing On a Stage is Permanent: The Harry Langdon Scrapbook." It's available from Amazon, and you can buy it from the publisher here.

The stage anecdote is from the book's introduction. Langdon Jr. is the narrator of a scrapbook that offers photos, artwork, press clippings, promotional clippings, film posters, letters, pay stubs, and more.

The narration is appropriately understated; the scrapbook is what the book's about, but it appropriately moves the reader through the life of Langdon and his career. The book serves as a well-done illustrated history of his life.

Some of the early photos, when Langdon was in vaudeville, in blackface, with "lightning sketches" he performed on the stage, and scrapbook items from his later hits "Johnny's New Car" and "After the Ball ..." will be priceless to fans. The recent publications of photos capturing Langdon's vaudeville days finally draw to a deserved close the Capra-inspired myth that he was a simpleton who had to be taught to be a film star.

I love the scrapbook additions of the Principle Pictures films that are mostly lost, as well as the contract. We learn in the book that one unreleased film, and lost, his very first, "The Skyscraper," was in a Pathe catalog in 1925 under a different title, "Mail and Female."

The book is full of tidbits that are of great interest to Langdon fans and all vintage comedy fans. There is a two-page promotional sheet for the lost film, "Heart Trouble," that is worth the cost of the Scrapbook.

Langdon Jr. notes that his mother, Mabel Langdon, carefully preserved these items. She survived her husband's death for well over 50 years. Langdon's highly talented art is in the scrapbook, including newspaper comic strips he did.

His personal life has a role in the book too. One pay stub for a film, "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum," shows that two thirds of Langdon's about $20,000 salary went for alimony. Another pay stub shows Langdon, in his own handwriting, noting a portion that goes to alimony.

The book is divided into sections, taking the reader through Langdon's life. His death is as sadly abrupt in the Scrapbook as it must have been in December of 1944. It's ultimately pointless to ponder how a Langdon in his late 60s, 70s, and later may have fared in TV. But it's hard not to.

Fortunately, his reputation was installed by critic James Agee, who in the late 1940s, tabbed him as one of the Big Four of silent comedy, along with Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.

In regards to Capra, the book doesn't shy away from that fact that Capra was correct that Langdon's move into more personal films, after "The Strong Man," hurt his career. It would be silly to refute the obvious. Also, Langdon took responsibility for those box office failures, and even criticized the later First National films.

I find beauty in "Three's A Crowd" and "The Chaser," but understand why they may have perplexed audiences 90 years ago. In his narration, Langdon Jr. doesn't flinch from pointing out the disaster Langdon's second marriage to Helen Walton was. The Scrapbook takes us through the lean years of the 1930s, when work was scarce, and trips around the world were required to make money. It also captures the happiness of Mabel and Harry's union, and Harry's joy to have a family with a son. Langdon Jr. notes that one reason he remembers his father so well is because the family revolved around Harry's life.

I hope this scrapbook sells well. It's a gem, easily worth its cost. I like that fans and others were involved in its creation. Film historian and author Ed Watz is credited for his contributions, as is former magazine publisher and writer Michael Copner. So is Cologne-based artist Birgit Kreps, who provides absolutely gorgeous hand coloring to many of the Scrapbook items. Finally, two of my dearest Facebook friends, super Langdon fans, Jessica Carlson and Nicole Arciola, are among those credited for their assistance.

It;s been a good year for Harry Langdon, heck a good decade-plus, with three biographies, some DVD releases, and this Scrapbook. What can we do to get Turner Classic Movies to air a Langdon First National Feature. How about accompanying it with an interview with his son featuring this scrapbook?

Sounds like a great idea to me.

Ed Watz on Wheeler and Woolsey

Interview by Doug Gibson

Ed Watz is the author of the above book, "Wheeler and Woolsey: The Vaudeville Comic Duo and Their Films, 1927-1937," (McFarland). It's a successful genre book logging more than 3,000 sales. Another book of Ed's I enjoy is "The Columbia Comedy Shorts," (McFarland) that he co-authored with Ted Okuda.

Ed's written a lot on vintage comedy the past several decades, and later this year his newest book, "Buster Keaton in the Talkies: Laughter Louder Than Words," is being published by BearManor Media. It will deal with Keaton's films from 1929 to 1941.

I owe my enjoyment of Wheeler and Woolsey to Ed's book, and I asked him recently to talk about the famous comedy duo, which made a lot of films, and money, for RKO. He agreed and here's our chat.

Plan9Crunch: Tell us a little about Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey's success in vaudeville in the 1920s and how they came to RKO's eye.

Watz: Bert Wheeler was a major star of vaudeville for about a decade, from the mid-teens until 1926. In 1923 Bert and his first wife and stage partner, Betty, were chosen by the legendary showman Florenz Ziegfeld to appear in that year's Ziegfeld Follies revue. Robert Woolsey only briefly worked in vaudeville; he appeared in numerous touring companies of famous plays, eventually landing on Broadway and appearing in a major show almost every season. In 1926 Ziegfeld hired Wheeler and Woolsey as the comedy relief in his latest extravaganza, RIO RITA. Their parts were loosely sketched but both comedians were expected to furnish their own material. By the time the show opened in New York the following February, they perfected a series of routines together that practically stole the show. When Ziegfeld sold the movie rights of RIO RITA to RKO, Wheeler and Woolsey were the show's only stage players who were hired to repeat their performances on film.

The subtitle of my W and W book, "The Vaudeville Comedy Team and Their Films," is actually somewhat of a misnomer as they were never a team in vaudeville. My original title for the book was "Forgotten Laughter," but my publisher decided to change it.

Plan9Crunch: Some call W and W small-town knock offs of the Marx Brothers but their films sometimes were more successful than the Marx Brothers.Whom played off whom, or did both teams have their own unique styles?

Watz: Actually I doubt that any of the W&W starring films outgrossed any of the Marx Brothers films, but because the W&Ws were usually modestly budgeted -- what you might call a "lazy 'A'" picture -- costing on average of $250,000 to $300,000. their films usually returned a decent profit of around $100,000 to $150,000. Whereas the Marx Brothers at Paramount and later MGM had budgets ranging first from around $600,000 and later over $1 million, their films tended to return a much smaller profit, or in the cast of three of their MGM films, no profit at all.

The Marx Brothers' films grossed more money, but their higher budgets meant that the profits -- if there were any to be had -- were lower than Wheeler & Woolsey's. The films of Laurel & Hardy and Abbott & Costello likewise had lower budgets and their films, like W&W's, usually returned a solid profit.

Wheeler & Woolsey, like Laurel & Hardy, were both star comedians in their own right; while they played off each other, neither was the straight man. If there is any team similar to them it certainly isn't Stan and Ollie, or Abbott &Costello; but the repartee and rivalry over a girl in the W&W films anticipates the Hope & Crosby pairings in the "Road" pictures.

Plan9Crunch: How important was Dorothy Lee (seen above with the pair} to the team's success? Is she comparable to a Margaret Dumont or Christine McIntyre as a valued cast player with a great comedy team?

Watz: Dorothy Lee is a charming asset to the W&W films, especially in those moments when she gets to sing and dance a duet with Bert Wheeler. She's not really a comedy character, and she rarely acts as a straight woman for the team. Dorothy herself usually dismissed her performances but she remains a fan favorite. Wheeler & Woolsey films are often populated by terrific supporting casts who do indulge in comic banter. The Marx Brothers' Margaret Dumont appeared with the team in two of their films. Others who contributed great support include Betty Grable, Lupe Velez, Edgar Kennedy, Marjorie White, Warren Hymer, Louis Calhern, Billy Gilbert and Noah Beery Sr., among others.

Plan9Crunch: What's your favorite Wheeler and Woolsey film and why?

Watz: I have two favorites: PEACH-O-RENO, in which Bert contributes a brilliant comedy performance in drag that matches for perfection Jack Lemmon's work in SOME LIKE IT HOT; and COCKEYED CAVALIERS, a period picture set in Restoration England where Bob Woolsey romances beautiful Thelma Todd and the team becomes involved in court intrigue when a jealous Baron (Noah Beery) mistakes the pair of the King's royal physicians. CAVALIERS is very much a blueprint for the "Road" comedies of the next decade. It has a solid plot with their best individual comedy scenes, plus it never meanders, moving swiftly and logically to a hilarious chase climax.

Plan9Crunch: They had a breakneck pace of making films in the 1930s. Was that a reflection of their popularity, and did it have an impact of wearing Robert down to an early death?

Watz: Wheeler & Woolsey were among RKO's biggest box office attractions from 1930 through 1935. Once the studio realized that big profits were to be made on their inexpensively produced films, they wasted no time in churning them out. Five W&W films were produced in 1930 alone. Ten years later, Universal put its new comedy team Abbott & Costello through a similar assembly-line production schedule. Bert and Bob, like Bud and Lou later on, finally rebelled and within a few years would restrict their output to two films a year.

Bob Woolsey was never a healthy person, and the tough filmmaking schedules (and later, personal appearance tours) doubtless wore him out. On top of that, he was an insomniac, and drank to put himself to sleep. Although Bob's death at age 50 was announced as due to kidney failure, Bert Wheeler attested that Woolsey died from cirrhosis of the liver.

Plan9Crunch: The pair seem mismatched but they click very well. Bert's lovesick charm with Robert's wisecracks and schemes. Why does it work and does it compare with other comedy teams? What can we learn about comedy from watching them today? They play often on Turner Classic Movies.

Watz: I think the takeaway one can get from watching Wheeler & Woolsey in their best films is that the world of 1930s comedy was much more diverse than just Laurel & Hardy, W.C. Fields, and The Marx Brothers. Besides W&W, there are many great comedians like Harry Langdon, Charley Chase, Joe E. Brown, Edgar Kennedy, and Leon Errol, to name a few, waiting to be rediscovered. Harry Langdon's work in talkies is a revelation; I know of some people who prefer his sound films to his more celebrated silents. In Wheeler & Woolsey's case, they provide us with a time capsule representing some of the best (and most delightful) of 1930s Musical Comedy. I'm pleased that Turner Classic Movies continues to show their films, and the success of my W&W book (over 3,000 copies sold) tells me that people do want to know and see more of Wheeler and Woolsey.

Plan9Crunch: Bert had a rough career after Woolsey's death and the end of the films. He did stay active, including in summer stock. Was he typecast from the earlier films, or was he a comedian who needed a partner?

Watz: There's one thing I'd like to address now. To be honest, Bert was disenchanted with film work towards the end of the Wheeler & Woolsey cycle. He preferred the live stage and returned to it as often as he could, the late films he did appear in where basically done when it was convenient and/or for quick cash. Like Abbott & Costello, Keaton, Langdon, John Barrymore, Chico Marx and other performers of that time, he had little regard for money and enjoyed spending it as quickly as it came in. What Wheeler did not take into account was that his absence from a mass media outlet like film, radio and later television basically ensured that he was overlooked by the public at large. When the film careers of other popular 1930s comedians stalled (Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, Burns & Allen), they had already made inroads into radio and easily adapted to television, ensuring their popularity into the 1950s and beyond.

That said, it doesn't seem to have fazed Bert when in the latter half of the 1950s the major stage opportunities were few and the television work became an ever-rarer opportunity. "I make as much as I need," he replied when Jack O'Brian inquired about his well-being in the 1960s. I truly believe that he looked back on his career content and with great satisfaction, not bitterness.

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We really appreciate Ed sharing his insights on Wheeler and Woolsey with Plan9Crunch and its readers and we look forward to his new book on Buster Keaton.

The Glove Slingers' Fresh as a Freshman -- a Columbia comedy short

By Doug Gibson

It's been several months since we posted a review of one of the lesser (read non-Three Stooges) Columbia comedy shorts, so let's continue this infrequent series with the 1941 short, "Fresh as a Freshman," (watch it above courtesy of The Columbia Shorts Department).

"Fresh as a Freshman" was part of The Glove Slingers series of comedy shorts. It followed the life of young boxer Terry Kelly, played by David Durand in this offering, but there were three Terrys in the series. As Ed Watz and Ted Okuda note in their book The Columbia Comedy Shorts, the Glove Slingers were a sequential series, rare for the Columbia shorts.

But this presented some problems with finding a theme for the series. Initially, Terry is a boxer, but then he goes off to college, with romance, songs and dance and the inevitable fistfight climax. "Fresh as a Freshman," directed by Jules White, is moderately entertaining but encompasses the series' failure to latch on to a regular theme. There's Terry, his ma, his buffoonish but warm-hearted manager and trainer duo, a girl (Pamela Blake) Terry gets a crush on, college life, an oafish former boyfriend, and another cute girl (Dona Drake) who does a singing act in the middle of the 18 minute short.

That's a lot of fish on the fire and the oafish slapstick of Terry's boxing world uneasily cohabits with the college life and fraternity dances.

The plot: Terry, on his way to school, takes a picture for ma. The previous failed picture of a beautiful coed meshes with Terry's dime slot picture. He falls in love with her and improbably meets her fixing her car. Even more improbably he mistakes this beautiful woman in mechanic's garb for a guy.

Anyway, they're a couple at college but the ex-boyfriend recruits the aforementioned singer to pretend to be Terry's paramour, thereby alienating his current girlfriend. Terry's ma and boxing team come up to college for a mixer and all is eventually resolved with Terry punching the oaf and kissing his girl.

I've omitted the constant slapstick, usually involving the trainer and manager or the ex-boyfriend. There's some racist humor early and Jules White's penchant for violent humor gets in. In an early scene, Terry kicks his newfound love in the butt when she loses a car part. He doesn't know it's her then but it's still cringe worthy.

I love the Columbia comedy shorts. Watch this just to learn a bit more about the comedy shorts that shared screen time with the Stooges. The Glove Slingers only lasted for 12 episodes and "Fresh as a Freshman" underscores why its time was limited. There were too many tools in the box for the Glove Slingers to maintain the interest necessary to have a long run.

Edward Bernds' memoir is a history of early Hollywood sound films

By Doug Gibson

I've long wanted to read Edward Bernds's memoir, "Mr. Bernds Goes to Hollywood: My Early Life and Career in Sound Recording at Columbia with Frank Capra and Others." But it's pricey. Just to buy it in Kindle is $40-plus dollars; out of print dead-tree copies go around $50 and more.

But I found it, in the library at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, where this blog calls home. Who wouldn't want to read about Edward Bernds' career as main sound man for such great Capra films as "Lady For A Day," "It Happened One Night," "You Can't Take It With You" and more? And Bernds was also on the set doing sound for Howard Hawks, Leo McCarey, Gregory LaCava, and more. In the studio system of the 1930s, it wasn't all A production assignments. Bernds was assigned to dozens of low-budget western oaters, many starring Charles Starrett. He also did sound for screen tests and the low-budget near low-on-the-Columbia-totem-pole comedy shorts. In fact, Bernds was on the set when a trio of performers, Moe, Curly and Larry, starred in a musical novelty short called "Women Haters." Of course, they became the Three Stooges and Bernds was around doing sound for many of the comedy, Stooges, Andy Clyde and others.

Bernds was born in Chicago in 1905. He loved the new medium radio and by the time he was 20 he worked at a Chicago station. When his girlfriend, Bathsheba, moved to Los Angeles, Bernds eventually followed her there and the pair were married. They returned to Chicago briefly but a job offer came from southern California as a sound technician. Bernds' tales of the early days of sound films is fascinating. He describes the gradual sophistication of studios' sound systems. Early synchronized sound involved filming in a confined space, that limited the freedom of the camera. That may be why so many early sound films look stagy.

Bernds worked briefly at United Artists but moved to Columbia. It was considered a lesser studio but it was a smart move for Bernds. He describes how he was noticed by Capra, an exceptional director who was able to place actors in plots and situations and elicit performances that made audiences care about their fate. Capra noted Bernds' talent, and he became his preferred sound technician.

It was a fortunate partnership. Bernds was an observer of film, a frustrated wannabe screenwriter and director who compensated that desire by writing short stories for the 1930s literary magazine "Rob Wagner's Script." Bernds recalls taking his published stories to Columbia's crusty boss, Harry Cohn, who always asked Bernds to send a screenplay. As Bernds notes, at that point in his life he lacked the confidence to write a screenplay.

As mentioned, Bernds kept notes and along with his memories they provide a detailed look at early sound Hollywood that is a treasure for film buffs. We get peeks into the characters and actions of stars such as Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, Claudette Colbert, Jimmy Stewart, Loretta Young, Leslie Howard Jean Arthur, The Stooges, of course, and many more.

Trust me when I say the life of a working-class, integral member of a film crew, the sound technician, is an interesting topic, particularly one toling 80-plus years ago. Bernds captures the times, the down of the Great Depression, the hope that Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered. We walk streets in 1930s southern California with Bernds and we vicariously relive Bernds' memories of his favorite mode of transportation, the cross-country train.

Bernds learned both diplomacy and when to assert himself on a set. As he recalls, Capra was open to suggestions, but a director such as LaCava would fire a subordinate for unsolicited information.

The details of filmmaking, beyond just sound technology, are fascinating in Bernds' memoir. He takes us across the Atlantic to shoot a film in England, to New York and New Jersey for shoots, to ranches in southern California, to the rickety Columbia stages used for the comedy shorts, and much more. We get glimpses of the dangers, and sometimes tragedies, that resulted in filming in an era before modern special effects.

Through the 1930s, Bernds and his wife raised a family and saw his paycheck grow with Columbia. But he harbored a major ambition, to be a director. And that is the theme of "Mr. Bernds Goes to Hollywood," it's one film professional's journey to finally becoming a director. The book opens with Bernds' relating Cohn's bewilderment that his efficient sound man wanted to chuck that for directing. It ends with Bernds' move to directing with the shorts department under the guidance of producer Hugh McCollum. The memoir barely covers the directing years, but any genre fan is well aware of the dozens of Columbia comedy shorts Bernds directed, and the features work he got, usually "Blondie" films.

Bernds never became an A director. He didn't have the opportunity to do Capra-esque films. He left Columbia when McCollum was fired and a previous western feature with The Stooges he made, "Gold Raiders," got terrible reviews and that hurt his career (I have seen the film and enjoy it). But he was hired at Allied Artists for a while and was busy directing for more than a decade, including the later Bowery Boys films, a couple of late Stooges features and some genuine cult science fiction films, including "Queen of Outer Space" and "World Without End."

He died in 2000, a year after his memoir was published. A couple of interesting points: Although he has great respect for Capra, he notes several recollected events that are distinctly different from what Capra writes in his autobiography. This is important because Capra, who had feuded with Harry Langdon in the 1920s, was harsh to Langdon in his memoirs, claiming things about him that have been debunked since.

Also, there is a bittersweet recollection of Bernds, and his writing pal Edward Ullman, visiting his old work office at Columbia in the late 1960s on business. The pair of film veterans were condescended to and lectured on comedy by a youngster less than half their age. At that point, Bernds decided he was content with his two film industry pensions.

I urge fans of the Columbia comedy shorts to read this book. They will gain a better appreciation of one of the best shorts directors. His later years are highlighted with an epilogue interview of Bernds by Leonard Maltin and Joseph McBride. Bernds offers interesting tidbits, some delightfully gossipy. McCollum, Bernds reveals, was smitten with the beautiful comedy shorts supporting player Christin McIntire, although he says it may have been platonic.

Those wishing a more detailed look at Bernds' work with Columbia comedy shorts must read the book by Ed Watz and Ted Okuda, "The Columbia Comedy Shorts, reviewed here.

Wife to Spare -- a Columbia comedy short with Andy Clyde

By Doug Gibson

Above you is a Columbia comedy short from 1947. It is obscure primarily because it's not one of The Three Stooges shorts. The wonderful trio has endured, and arguably is on TV somewhere daily. But there are many, many other Columbia comedy shorts, and they are gems. Stars include Buster Keaton, Charlie Chase, Harry Langdon, Hugh Herbert, Andy Clyde (of whom we will talk about in this post) and many more.

They merit appreciation today, and at Plan9Crunch we plan to highlight the non-Stooges Columbia shorts. There are a lot. We'll also make sure when we review a short, that our readers can watch it via YouTube, or other sources. That takes me to a wonderful film historian named Greg Hilbrich, who following the fantastic research of Ed Watz, Ted Okuda, Leonard Maltin and others, has created The Columbia Shorts Department website. It's a labor of love to pay homage to all the shorts that studio released over a quarter century. We interviewed Greg on his site recently and we reviewed Watz and Ted's book on the Columbia shorts as well.

What Mr. Hilbrich has done, as well as some others on YouTube (Johnny Flattire and Billie Towzer come to mind) is to upload many of the "lost" Columbia shorts on The Shorts Department YouTube page. Thanks to the Columbia Shorts Department, I have watched a 1947 Andy Clyde Columbia short, "Wife to Spare," several times in the last week. You can watch it too, it's at the top of this blog.

In what will be, as mentioned, and occasional series on Plan9Crunch, we'll make "Wife to Spare" the first Columbia short to be reviewed in 2016. (By the way, we have reviewed another a ways back, Harry Langdon in "To Heir is Human."
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Wife to Spare, 1947, Columbia comedy short, black and white, about 16 minutes, 25 seconds, directed by Edward Bernds, starring Andy Clyde, Christine McIntyre, Lucile Brown, Dick Wessel, Vera Lewis, Murray Alper, Emile Sitka and Heine Conklin.
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What's best about this late 1940s offering is the cast. It's stellar. Besides Clyde as the fussy businessman married to beautiful Brown, and forced to live with a ne-er-do-well brother in law (Wessel) and a mother in law from hell (Lewis) you have Columbia second player stars Sitka and McIntyre in supporting roles. Finally, Conklin, a name from the comedy silents, has a small role as a janitor. It's retro movie magic, and although the tight budget and hurried script is evident, the manpower of talent, as well as above-average direction of Bernds, make this an enjoyable 1,000 seconds and I'm sure pleased theater audiences.

Clyde made hundreds of Columbia shorts. By this time he had long shaved his beard, kept the mustache and was able to play a fussy, yet determined city man, trying to solve others mistakes, get out of his own jam, and have a peaceful life with his wife and no mother in law. The plot has him trying to get his layabout brother in law (Wessel) out of a $500 jam due to activities with a sexy gold-digger, played by a very attractive McIntyre, who literally lets her hair down, chewing up the scenery as a schemer who moves to frame Clyde once she realizes he has more cash.

In a funny scene, McIntyre maneuvers Clyde into compromising photos and audio while her co-swindler husband, Alper, gathers the "evidence." Things appear bleak for Clyde; the swindlers are demanding $5,000, his wife has overheard him talking to McIntyre, and his mother in law hires a lawyer (Sitka) to have her daughter divorce Andy.

As with most of the films, before budgets were really slashed in the 1950s, there's a lot of plot for two reels. Enough of the jokes work to leave you with a smile. These actors stayed busy. Clyde had overall 390 acting roles, says IMDB, McIntyre 130, most with Columbia shorts. Wessel 301!

I'd like to focus on two "Wife to Spare" Columbia shorts regulars. McIntyre is best known as a classy co-star to the Stooges, with her hair up and manners impeccable. Like Dent and Sitka, she's achieved iconic status as a Stooges' foil. In "Wife to Spare,' she has a more prurient sexual appeal, with her hair down and trying to sweet talk Clyde with a fake southern accent (her name is Honey Jackson). The other occasional Columbia player is Wessel. He hasn't gained iconic status and while he had his moments in other shorts, he's the weak link in "Wife to Spare." His idea of comedy is to laugh hysterically (maniacally) every time Andy bumps his head or walks into something.

The opening scene sets the pace for a slightly above average short, with Clyde dressed in woman's clothes, forced to clothes model for the women in his household. Watch it above and come back to Plan9Crunch for another Columbia shorts review in the near future.

Talking Three Stooges and more: An interview with the creator of Columbia Shorts Department website

When it comes to history on the 25 years that the Columbia comedy shorts were a staple in movie theaters, there was the book, "The Columbia Comedy Shorts," by Ted Okuda and Ed Watz, that has been like a bible for us genre fans. However, one individual has taken it a step further into the digital age.

Greg Hilbrich is the creator of the website The Columbia Shorts Department. It is an always-growing "information-heavy site dedicated to the vintage theatrical short subjects of Columbia Pictures." The website is frankly, priceless, and we are indebted to Hilbrich's hard work and scholarship. Once I discovered the site, I knew we had to interview him for Plan9Crunch, and we have a treasure trove of information ahead of us. It's a long interview, but full of fascinating information, but still not nearly as much information as The Columbia Shorts Department website contains.

Enjoy the interview!

-- Doug Gibson

Plan9Crunch: How did you become interested enough in the Columbia comedy shorts to start a website on its history?

Hilbrich:  Here's the short answer.

It all began with the Three Stooges. I was fortunate enough to grow up in the pre-cable/satellite days when weekends on local television were made for old Bowery Boys and Abbott and Costello comedies, Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolfman films and an occasional Ma and Pa Kettle or a Sherlock Holmes feature. The real fun for me was the after-school programming, shows like Gilligan's Island and The Munsters and old theatrical shorts like Popeye, Woody Woodpecker, The Little Rascals and The Three Stooges. During one of these television viewings of a Stooges short, my dad told me about how, as a kid growing up in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he rarely saw a Stooges short in the theater. Instead, he rattled off the names of comedians he remembered seeing ... Andy Clyde, El Brendel, Hugh Herbert and Buster Keaton. He told me how he recognized Jules White's name (on the Stooges shorts) and that he was the same guy who made the films of the comedians he named, (and) told me that they had the same sound effects. His little discussion on these "other films" ended with the question "How come they don't ever show those guys on TV anymore?" (He recalled seeing the Andy Clyde and Buster Keaton Columbia shorts on WGN Channel 9 out of Chicago in the early 1960s, tied into the same hour-long program with the Stooge comedies).

I asked a few more questions about his movie-going experiences, where I learned that most of what I watched, the old Popeye and Tom and Jerry cartoons were made to be seen in a theater too. I had always noticed the studio logos at the beginning of them, but never quite made the connection at that age. So I went to the library and began my research. Being such a Stooges fan, I found myself checking out books like MOE HOWARD AND THE THREE STOOGES and THE THREE STOOGES SCRAPBOOK. In these books I would find the names of a few of the guys my dad had mentioned, El Brendel and Andy Clyde, in the select filmographies. I also discovered that there were short comedies starring all three of the actors who were more popular for replacing Curly as "third Stooge." So my interest in theatrical short-subjects began ... one thing led to another and that's when I found the book THE GREAT MOVIE SHORTS by Leonard Maltin, a book chock-full of the information I was seeking out, but (still) I couldn't find a single one of these films to view.

Then it happened. ... I discovered THE book ... my "bible" of sorts, THE COLUMBIA COMEDY SHORTS by Ted Okuda and Ed Watz. This book was even more chock-full of the information I sought as it was a complete list of every two-reel comedy Columbia produced, 526 of them, between 1933-1958 (The book only concerned itself with those shorts produced in Hollywood by both Jules White and Hugh McCollum. Columbia actually produced/released thousands of one- and two-reel subjects ranging from animated cartoons to sports reels to sing-a-long subjects). There was information on the people in front of and behind the scenes, release dates, actual quotes from folks who appeared in the films and more, But even with this wealth of information provided by Okuda and Watz, one thing that was apparent to the question "How can I get to see some of these things?" ... was that there simply was no easy way. So I started to look into other areas of opportunity such as private 16mm film collectors, mom-and-pop home video companies, and Hollywood collector shows.

Unfortunately, being new to this, I didn't turn anything up right away. My dad died in 1992, so he never got to see any of the films he had me searching for, but shortly after his passing, they seemed to start pouring in, Andy Clyde and El Brendel being the first official non-Stooge Columbia shorts I got to see.

I like to think that my dad had a lot to do with that.

So as I gathered up more shorts for my collection, I also gathered up more bits and pieces of info that THE COLUMBIA COMEDY SHORTS book had omitted; not on purpose, just over time, more information became available. So, with the blessings of Ted Okuda and Ed Watz, my site became a somewhat unofficial and very expanded follow up to their book.

Plan9Crunch: How would you describe your site to a casual web surfer whose knowledge on the subject ends with the Three Stooges?

Hilbrich:  As far as the comedy shorts go,  I often describe a non-Stooge Columbia short as being a Three Stooges film without the Three Stooges. I describe them that way because the same folks behind the Stooge films are behind these other shorts. Easily recognizable are the names of directors, writers, co-stars, gags, plots and sound effects, even the style of the opening titles are all very familiar, giving off a sense of déjà vu even to the casual Stooges viewer. Columbia was the king of the two-reel comedy short. The unit stayed in business until the late 1950s, and the shorts stayed in regular theatrical circulation a good 10 years after Columbia closed the doors on its short subjects division. There was a reason why, and although the 190 shorts starring The Three Stooges were the studio’s number-one two-reeler draw, there were another 336 two-reelers that helped keep the unit in business. So my site explores those other films, all by series. Originally, the site was going to focus only on the two-reel comedies, but I decided to make the site a much wider world when it comes to the shorts that feature the words "Columbia Pictures Presents." I offer information (when available) on every single Columbia short either produced by the studio or produced by other production companies and released through Columbia. Being that there are thousands of titles, my site might be a bit much for the casual web surfer -- it's very info-heavy -- and it could easily scare someone off. It's also a work-in-progress, and I am doing my best to make it user friendly.

Plan9Crunch: Obviously, the Three Stooges have became iconic and are still played today on TV. What separates their long-term appeal from other stars, such as Buster Keaton or Harry Langdon, whose Columbia shorts are appreciated only by a few genre fans?

Hilbrich: The Stooges are far different from Langdon or Keaton, or most of the other comics who appear in these two-reelers, but the shorts of Langdon and Keaton, and many others, were just as popular when originally released.

As I mentioned earlier, not all of the shorts ran in certain areas of the country. I've looked through old newspaper archives, for instance, and in the area my dad grew up in and rarely saw an "Also included, a Three Stooges comedy" in the movie advertisements local theaters ran. I did find a lot of Andy Clyde, El Brendel, Harry Langdon Columbia's advertised, even some simple "Added-Columbia Comedy" blurbs with no description of what the short was. It was definitely television that helped spark the Stooges' popularity (not saying they weren't already a hit).

Because of the Stooges' television success, Columbia’s Screen Gems released to TV a package of some 200 non-Stooge titles. Their selections of titles are somewhat baffling, not every single short in a series was offered. Using the Stooges' success, these films were marketed as sure-fire ratings winners. They weren't, and disappeared from TV a short time after their initial release (maybe turning up as fillers after a movie or during a rain delay of a ball game). I think the reason for this was that they simply weren't the Stooges. They usually ran in a time slot shared by other shows popular with the after-school crowd; combined into an hour-long block of maybe, for instance, a Bugs Bunny cartoon, a Popeye cartoon, and a Glove Slingers short. ... "Glove Slingers? Where are the Stooges?" some kid who just rushed home from school to catch them might ask. Now, as for Andy Clyde and Buster Keaton, I believe because they were still in the public eye, their shorts remained in the rotation (at least at WGN they did). Other stations, such as one in Cincinnati, rotated through the entire package of non-Stooge shorts.

Another reason that these films in their post-theatrical run maybe fizzled out was that there just weren't enough of them to sustain a series of sorts. There were 190 Stooges shorts to cycle through as a daily program, and only 10 Keaton shorts. In some other cases, a series with Polly Moran (that was included in this non-Stooge deal) only contained 2 titles. Yet despite their TV revival failure, a lot of the shorts (many unobtainable today, like Harry Mimmo’s DOWN THE HATCH) were reissued theatrically in the early 1960s.

Plan9Crunch: I have read Okuda and Watz' book, "The Columbia Comedy Shorts," and I'd wager the casual reader would be shocked to discover how many Columbia comedy shorts stars there were. Who are some of your favorites among the many, including Hugh Herbert, Charley Chase, Monty Collins, El Brendel, Vera Vague, Sterling Holloway, Schilling and Lane, Baer and Rosenbloom, Shemp Howard, Joe Besser ... and so many more?

Hilbrich: I was one of those who was shocked to see how many comics Columbia starred in two-reelers. My favorite of these others are Andy Clyde, followed by El Brendel. Hugh Herbert’s films are fun when he's paired with Dudley Dickerson, but I like them all; even the worst of the shorts have a moment or two, well, maybe not KIDS WILL BE KIDS (1954), Jules White’s answer to the then-popular theatrical reissues of Hal Roach’s Our Gang (The Little Rascals) comedies.

Plan9Crunch: What can we do to get more of these other Columbia shorts into public consumption? I love Harry Langdon and have managed to see most of his Columbia shorts via YouTube, and I bought the DVD release of Keaton's shorts. But it's a tough task finding these non-Stooges shorts, and recently I've noticed Langdon shorts being taken down from You Tube by Sony for copyright reasons!!?? I would hope Sony would release Langdon's Columbia shorts, but that seems like a fantasy wish.

Hilbrich:  I hope that because Sony is pulling some of the shorts that were posted on You Tube that it's a sign that these little films could be coming to the On Demand DVD service (or maybe even TCM) in the near future. A while back, an online petition was formed to get the Columbia Charley Chase shorts onto DVD -- that finally happened (the set was almost sidelined by the poor reception the Keaton set received). The Chase shorts were made available through the Sony On Demand dvd-r service. A bonus included the Chase-directed Columbia short A NAG IN THE BAD with comics Smith and Dale. Perhaps a petition would help see at least some other shorts in the future.

The two-reelers have crept their way onto DVD. A beautiful restoration of MIDNIGHT BLUNDERS with Tom Kennedy and Monty Collins appears on a set of Columbia horror films, PHONY CRONIES with El Brendel appears on one of the budget Stooges DVD sets, and Andy Clyde’s HOT PAPRIKA appears as an extra on a Hammer Studios pirate-themed set. All but two solo Stooges' Columbia shorts are available on in the Ultimate Stooges DVD set, included are a couple of Andy Clyde and Glove Slingers shorts that co-star Shemp Howard (as well as the Shemp Howard-El Brendel team up PICK A PECK OF PLUMBERS).  The two titles missing are NOT GUILTY ENOUGH (Andy Clyde with Shemp Howard) and a early Joe Besser short produced by Ben Blake called CUCKOORANCHO. I highly recommend this Ultimate Stooges set.

Plan9Crunch: What's the most fulfilling aspect of your Columbia blog for you? Is it tracking down the shorts posters, bio info on the stars, or finding new locations or websites where many of the shorts exist, or something else?

Hilbrich: I love researching this subject, collecting lobby cards and one-sheets for these little two-reelers is fun, but the most fulfilling thing about collecting information about these mostly forgotten films has been helping family members of those who either appear on screen or were behind the scenes during the production actually get to see the films. Harry von Zell's daughter, for example, had no idea that her father ever appeared in his own two-reel comedy series and was floored by what she saw when I sent her some of the films I have in my collection. Why she didn't know he appeared in two-reelers was answered by the fact that he just never mentioned it. Another person who comes to mind is the son of Stooges writer Searle Kramer. He knew his dad worked on Stooges shorts (some of their best, I feel), but had no info or had ever seen the other Columbia films his dad wrote or co-wrote, and I helped him obtain copies of several.

Plan9Crunch: I've noticed there are lost Columbia shorts. Do you think it's more that they haven't been properly looked for or that they are really lost?

Hilbrich: I think it's a mixed bag. I know of a few titles that no material exist on, but I think for the most part, they're out there. I know of a few one-of-a kind prints in private collectors hands, and I know of a few that have been publicly screened that I'd love to get copies of (Harry Mimmo's DOWN THE HATCH in 3D and ROOTIN TOOTIN TENDERFEET, a Max Baer and Maxie Rosenbloom short that was a reworking of Laurel and Hardy's WAY OUT WEST). Probably not the best shorts, but it's nice to know that they're out there, especially with the recent discovery of HELLO POP, a Ted Healy short featuring Moe, Larry and Curly that was made at MGM, that was once on top of the "lost pile," so there's hope.

On a personal note, I finally tracked down a print of MITT ME TONIGHT, the fifth short in the Glove Slingers series. It was part of the Screen Gems' TV package for syndication, but it's been a tough one for me to track down. There were 12 Glove Slingers shorts produced, and I believe only the first 8 titles were in the TV package. A "Holy Grail" of sorts is the last of the Glove Slingers series, HIS GIRL’S WORST FRIEND, as it features my pal Parry Hall's father, Eddie Hall.

Plan9Crunch: There were scores of supporting players in the Columbia shorts, Vernon Dent, Christine McIntire, Dick Curtis ... Who are some of your favorite supporting players?

Hilbrich: I am a big fan of Vernon Dent. Christine McIntyre always stands out, but my favorite is Emil Sitka. That man could have had his own series. His on-screen antics are often funnier than the star player's, to which a comparison to James Finlayson of the Laurel and Hardy subjects was always made by my dad whenever Sitka was on screen. He's always a focal point, no matter how large or small his role is. He's terrific in Billie Burke’s BILLIE GETS HER MAN (1948)  and in the role as Hugh Herbert's uncle in HOT HEIR (1947), a role he would improve upon in its remake, GENTS IN A JAM (1952) with The Three Stooges. And then there's his role as the preacher in BRIDELESS GROOM. Can you imagine one of the other supporting players, such as Vernon Dent or Dick Wessel in that role? Neither can I.

Plan9Crunch: The Columbia shorts had a certain slapstick style, influenced by Jules White and made very popular by the Three Stooges. What impact, in your opinion, did Columbia's more physical style of comedy have on the success, or lack of success, stars such as Keaton, Langdon, Chase and others had. Also, did Columbia leave the lasting impression on comedy shorts, in the same manner that, for example, Glenn Strange's Frankenstein Monster is more iconic than Boris Karloff's monster?

Hilbrich: It's funny that you bring up the Frankenstein comparison, as I associate Glenn Strange with that role over Boris Karloff, too.

Columbia cornered the market on 15-20 minute slapstick comedies with their unique, mostly overly violent tones. But the Stooges' style of slapstick comedy in these Columbia shorts is really different and the boys take it up a notch, even when compared to a short like TRAINING FOR TROUBLE with Gus Schilling and Richard Lane that recycles the same or very similar plot line and gags. There is a smoother flow to the Stooge films, and there is a flat-out attraction to their characterization of human beings. In a Stooges short, Moe, in retaliation will pick up a shovel and swing it into Larry's face as a form of punishment, with a CLANG sound effect. In an El Brendel two-reeler, El might pick up that same prop shovel to begin to throw it over his shoulder, and with that same sound effect of a CLANG, he clips Tom Kennedy in the head. It's an accident that is forgiven, leaving El to be happy. Moe wasn't on the other end of that shovel.

The moments of slapstick throughout these shorts are all very similar, vases get broken over people's heads, monsters or goons chase people through hallways, gun fire blows hats off heads, but it's all a little different than how those same situations appear in the shorts of the Three Stooges. The cartoon violence that is softened by those sound effects mentioned earlier are handled very well in the Stooge shorts, and for that reason the sound effects work better with them. The Jules White approach to the violent style of slapstick does outshine other studios' short-subjects of the era just because that style is much more outlandish in approach and execution.

As for the success or lack of success this style of comedy had on others like Charley Chase or Harry Langdon, I don't think it was lost in first release. If you look through older reviews in trade magazines, audiences ate it up; the shorts were popular, even shorts that we might look at today as being just so-so. Keaton’s Columbia shorts are looked at today as being awful. I really don't think they are as bad as the shorts he made at Educational, and they are definitely 10 times better than the stuff he did for MGM in the early 1930s. Are they as good as his early 1920s output, no, they aren’t. The style is very much off from what viewers today are used to seeing when compared to his silents , and the use of stunt doubles or rear-screen projection can be jarring, but audiences of the day welcomed his films, and I don't think they compared something like THE GENERAL to his Columbia short MOOCHING THROUGH GEORGIA. He was a familiar face from the past once again bringing laughs to the screen.

If anything, it was the release of the films to television that spawned a lack of success; again going back to what I mentioned earlier, the films were broadcast during a time slot children were used to seeing the Stooges in. And the Stooges had more childlike appeal, with Curly’s mannerisms. A good example of a Columbia shorts series being a close second to the Stooges in appeal to both theatrical audiences and younger television viewers later are those starring Andy Clyde. His "old man" character is the draw, a likable goof that wanders into slapstick situations but never comes off as too stupid to sympathize with (as Laurel and Hardy do (to me at least) in their later films for Fox.

Slapstick was the focus of 90 percent of Columbia's two-reel comedies, especially those directed by Jules White. Ed Bernds' approach at directing the shorts sometimes allow an actual story line to develop and conclude in the brief 16-18 minutes with outlandish bits of slapstick peppered throughout. A Jules White short might end on a sight gag with no conclusion to the story line, and some vote that the Stooges shorts at his helm are much more cruel, even with the sound effects softening the violence. TV stations took notice, and some of the gags, for either sensitive material that was a product of the times or extreme amounts of violence, cartoonish or not, were either cut by Screen Gems themselves or by in-house television station editors.

The most violent scene in Columbia shorts history was not even a product of Jules White, but instead by director Del Lord in THEY STOOGE TO CONGA (1943) with The Three Stooges. It's the now-famous climbing spike gag, in which Curly drives a spike into Moe's eye. It's been reported that Screen Gems did not include this short in its rotation of Stooge comedies for syndication, but that is not true. Now whether or not stations chose not to use this short in their lineup  or have their in-house editors remove the climbing spike clip, I'll never know. I'm sure a little of both happened, but I own a Screen Gems print of this title, climbing spike gag and all intact.  But even with some of these shorts slightly edited for violent content, we'll never really know how many kids busted each other's skulls open with a hammer or cut off one another's noses with a pair of scissors, but I think it's pretty safe to say that very few kids were sent to the ER for 32 stitches because one of their pals playing Moe ran a hacksaw across their heads.

Plan9Crunch: What future plans do you have for the site? Any chance of a convention with a full slate of shorts with those players we can't access on TV today?

Hilbrich: The site is still, and will most likely always be, a work-in-progress since I am always updating it with new or expanded information that I continue to find daily, which I couldn't do by myself, so I do feature a page of acknowledgement to all of those who have helped me out. One of the biggest challenges for me is finding information on the less-popular one-reel subjects, especially those from the early 1930s. I've managed to gather up titles, but I'm still working on production credits and the synopsis. There are a few other things in the works, like a media player and gallery for photos of the one-sheets, lobby cards and other bits of related material. There are also some other pages to the site that I am working on, pages with mini-bios for the writers, directors and other behind-the-scenes folks.

The site is also on the way to becoming a dot com site, so you won't have to type in a thousand-letter web address. I'd love to do a screening of the shorts, maybe one day that will happen, but I don't have anything planned.

Book thoroughly details the film career of funnymen Wheeler and Woolsey

Review by Doug Gibson

As the '30s approached, and the "talkies" gained momentum and the Great Depression became the norm for a while, a shift occurred in screen comedy. The subtle, pathos-driven comedy of the silent era faded, and more broad comedy, with an emphasis on witty dialogue and even musical numbers, gained in popularity. One example of this shift was The Marx Brothers. Another lesser-known example is a distressingly forgotten pair -- except to genre buffs and film historians, of course -- named (Bert) Wheeler and (Robert) Woolsey. The duo, long vets of the stagecraft of vaudeville, had been together several years when RKO Radio Pictures, a studio that cranked out B features, signed the duo. It turned out to be a profitable venture for the comics and the studio. Over the course of nearly a decade, until the older Woolsey died, more than a score of films were produced. They were funny, fast-paced romps, with lots of laughs, pretty women and pleasant music for Depression-era audiences. The pair were mismatched well; Wheeler with the softer edges, a more pathos comedian who caught most of the girls' eyes, and Woolsey, the angular, homely but wisecracking schemer who had his share of the girls too.

There isn't much out there on Bert and Robert, so we can be grateful that film historian Ed Watz wrote a while back the book "Wheeler & Woolsey: The Vaudeville Comic Duo and Their Films, 1929 to 1937," McFarland Press. The RKO films are analyzed in detail, all of them, including my personal favorites "The Cuckoos," "Peach O Reno," "Hold 'Em Jail," "The Nitwits" and even the much-lamented "Mummy's Boys," which I kind of liked, darn it! As it is with genre books that are written for extreme fans and historians, much of the action behind the scenes is detailed, including the duo's dealings with a very boorish studio exec David O. Selznick, as well as RKO's shabby treatment of Woolsey at the genesis of his tenure. The studio planned to dump him relatively early but the duo's success prevented that, and Woolsey was able to get his "revenge" in the form of a fat paycheck later.

Ed Watz, when he wrote the book, was able to include the reminisces of frequent co-star Dorothy Lee, and recollections from her and others on the scene add to the value of the screen biographies. Another co-star to the duo included Betty Grable, as well "the Mexican Spitfire" Lupe Velez. Directors of the comedies included future great George Stevens. In "The Nitwits," directed by Stevens, there is a wonderful song and dance number, up and down a staircase, with Wheeler and the gorgeous Grable, who play young lovers in the film.

Peach O Reno is an interesting film, as it presents the comedy team as successful at the outset. The pair are the top divorce team in Reno by day, and successful casino operators by night. Nevertheless, the duo soon get into trouble. More typical scenarios have the boys as foils who outsmart the heavies. Examples include Hold 'Em Jail, where they are patsies put in jail and Mummy's Boys, where they are low-wage workers signed for a dig. As Watz notes, the latter film was similar to an Abbott & Costello feature 20 years later.

Prior to the story of their film career together, Watz offers concise updates on their earlier lives. Wheeler enjoyed fame on vaudeville with his wife Betty, until she dumped him -- both in love and art -- for a competitor. After a short period of doldrums, Wheeler hooked up with Woolsey, a veteran of vaudeville, and the pair were a big success in the mid to late 1920s. (Betty's career faded, by the way, and she ended up divorced.) Woolsey, not uncommon for future vaudeville stars, grew up in extreme poverty with most of his siblings dying as a children. Later, it was affectionately noted, writes Watz, that his wife Minnie was both perfect for him, and as homely.

The pair had a long movies run. As Watz recounts, the frailer Woolsey's body just gave out. In his final film, long shots of him are another actor. He died, in 1938 of, as Watz notes, of either kidney or liver problems, or perhaps both. With death at the cusp of his success, his funeral was a big deal in Hollywood.

As Watz recalls, Wheeler outlived his partner by three decades, but his death received far less fanfare. In fact, he was buried in "an area for impoverished actors," writes Watz. Wheeler's first film sans Woolsey, in which he played a Midwestern quarterback in a Warner's film, was a flop. I have seen the film, "Cowboy Quarterback," and it isn't much. Watz is correct to note it was a poor rip off of Joe E. Brown material.Wheeler's film career continued downward. He had small parts in TV and even a short stint doing comedy shorts at Columbia's factory. It wasn't all bad, though. The actor, although grown more cynical over the years, maintained success on the stage, and that kept the bills paid for the rest of his life. He died in 1968. In an event that shows Wheeler's humanity, Watz relates a one-day reunion Bert had with his long wife/partner Betty. Because she was down on her luck, it's likely Bert gave his New York stage salary to her.

I have compared Wheeler and Woolsey to the Marx Brothers, albeit a more meat and potatoes version. There's music and wisecracks from Woolsey and a more subdued but still very funny Wheeler. There's also love, although it's tongue is often in its cheek. However, it's worth noting the pair often outgrossed Groucho, Harpo and Chico. Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey saved RKO Studios from probable ruin. They used their vaudeville experience and comic timing to create original characters who made audiences laugh, enjoy music, and feel good in tough times. It's been sheer bad luck -- too many comedy brews out there -- that the pair have faded from most memories.

Watz' book is a treasure, and his detailed research, done for love and not money, is appreciated. The book is well worth the $35 asking price from McFarland (here). Thanks to DVD and stations such as Turner Classic Movies, the comedy pair can be watched. As soon as I finish this review, I'm sitting down to enjoy "The Nitwits,' DVD-rd just a few days ago via TCM.