Random Thoughts

Jack and the Beanstalk. Jean Yarbrough. 1952.

Hey! Abbott and Costello on the heels of Laurel and Hardy! Whenever some Oldz person writes about either of the pairs, they’ll make sure to mention how the other pair is better/worse. I can never remember which one they prefer. Probably Laurel and Hardy?

Based on the two L&H films, I don’t really see the connection. A&C aren’t doing the same thing at all? But this may be the first A&C thing I’ve seen beyond some shorts and skits.

Anyway, this is pretty amusing. And it has like a plot and everything. It’s really sweet.

But yeesh. Some cruelty to that poor hen, though. They must have gone through several iterations. That’s a thing that hasn’t aged well. Nobody on the set thought “Perhaps it would be more comfortable for the hen to be carried under his arm instead of by her feet upside down”? I mean, people aren’t psychopaths any more. Are they!?

This blog post is part of the Century series.

Slapstick isn’t funny if it looks like the guy is really suffering

Utopia. Léo Joannon. 1951.

The DVD transfer is rather beat. I almost looks like it was mastered from a VHS copy?

And Laurel and Hardy look really beat here, too. Hardy is sweating profusely in many scenes and Laurel looks like he’s at death’s door.

Time for research!

In 1950, Laurel and Hardy were invited to France to make a feature film. The film was a disaster, a Franco-Italian co-production titled Atoll K. (The film was entitled Utopia in the US and Robinson Crusoeland in the UK.) Both stars were noticeably ill during the filming.

Sayeth Wikipedia.

But it’s delightfully silly in parts, but some scenes seem more like abuse of the elderly than comedy.

It has an uneasy mixture of Hollywood romanticism and European cynicism. It devolves from a sweet screwball fantasy into Lord of the Flies in a really weird way.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

At War With The Army. Hal Walker. 1950.

Hay! What happened to the 40s? I skipped it, because I’m amassing a collection of 40s film for a future nefarious blogging project.

So we’re not in 1950, but with a comedy/musical/war film. With Jerry Lewis!

Oh! This has the scene that Monty Python referred to with their Spam Song? “Beans beans beans beans, beautiful beans.”

I had no idea!

Anyway, this is a very low-budget film. Most of it takes place inside a couple of rather dreary offices, so it all depends on how funny you find Jerry Lewis’ adenoidal charms.

Dean Martin squeezes in a couple of mellifluous song numbers.

I was amused throughout, but I didn’t, you know, laugh.

It’s sweet.

I’m cocktailing my way through The Savoy Cocktail Book, and man, people in the olden times sure liked their cocktails strong: Most of the ones I’ve done so far are basically just booze. The lowest-alcohol ingredient is at like 20%.

Perhaps I should skip to the coolers/planters/punches chapters to get some vitamins in.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

The Flying Deuces. A. Edward Sutherland. 1939.

Hey! That’s a gap of several years since the previous film! I thought I had more 30s DVDs… And I sort of have, but they’re all part of various box sets, so I’m skipping them for this blog series, which is All Single DVDs All The Time.

This may be the first Laurel & Hardy feature film I’ve ever seen. I’ve just seen some shorts as a child… I think we had one on Super 8? I may be imagining things.

So this isn’t anything like I thought it would be. I thought it would just be Laurel and Hardy bumping their heads into things for an hour straight. But there’s like a kind of plot in between the antics and stuff.

I wouldn’t say that it’s a good film… It’s not Marx Brothers. But it’s pretty amusing.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

It Happened One Night. Frank Capra. 1934.

Uh-up. This one won the Oscars. But how bad can it be? It’s Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, directed by Frank Capra, so it should be, like, good.

But it’s not. It all feels like a creeper rapey thing: Gable pursued Gilbert with a ferocity and inevitability that’s unnerving and offputting. If it had been Cary Grant, it might not have been as creepy, because he’s more charming and gay, but throughout this film we’re basically watching Colbert wondereing whether she’ll get raped or whether he’s a possible new boyfriend.

Or perhaps there’s no difference?

When she wants to go off to eat a hamburger, the psycho boyf says “I’ll break your neck!” Only the knowledge that we’re watching a romantic comedy and not a deranged psychopathic fantasy allows us to smile along with then antics.

It’s creepy as fuck.

On the other hand, perhaps I just don’t like Clark Gable.

This blog post is part of the Century series.