As a fan of classic film comedy, I am always very happy when TCM has a comedian as their star of the month. For this month, the star of the month is none other than Red Skelton. Starting every Monday at 5pm Pacific, 8pm Eastern, TCM will be playing a block of Red Skelton movies.
Though many know Red best for his work on radio and TV, he had a very impressive film career as well. Like many classic movie comedians, though he was in some great films most of his filmography is made up of programmers that simply provide a fun way to spend an hour and a half. However not every movie needs to be Casablanca and sometimes a fun vintage programmer is exactly what I want to watch, and I plan on watching as much of Red Skelton as I can.
Below is a list of the Red Skelton movies that will be playing.
Monday April 7th
Whistling in the Dark (1941) Director: S. Sylvan Simon. 5pm Pacific. 8pm Eastern
Whistling in Dixie (1942) Director: S. Sylvan Simon. 6:30pm Pacific. 9:30pm Eastern
Whistling in Brooklyn (1943) Director: S. Sylvan Simon. 8pm Pacific. 11pm Eastern
Maisie Gets Her Man (1942) Director: Roy Del Ruth. 9:45pm Pacific. 12:45am Eastern.
Panama Hattie (1942) Director: Norman Z. McLeod. 11:30pm Pacific. 2:30am Eastern
Monday April 14th
Ship Ahoy (1942) Director: Edward Buzzell. 5pm Pacific. 8pm Eastern.
I Dood It (1943) Director: Vincente Minnelli. 7pm Pacific. 9pm Eastern.
Du Barry Was a Lady (1943) Director: Roy Del Ruth. 9pm Pacific. 12am Eastern.
Merton of the Movies (1947) Director: Robert Alton. 11pm Pacific. 2am Eastern.
Monday April 21st
Bathing Beauty (1944) Director: George Sidney. 5pm Pacific. 8pm Eastern.
Neptune's Daughter (1949) Director: Edward Buzzell. 7pm Pacific. 10pm Eastern.
Texas Carnival (1951) Director: Charles Walters. 8:45pm Pacific. 11:45pm Eastern.
Three Little Words (1950) Director: Richard Thrope. 10:15pm Pacific. 1:15am Eastern.
Tuesday April 22nd
A Southern Yankee (1948) Directors: Edward Sedgwick and S. Sylvan Simon. 12:15am Pacific. 3:15am Eastern.
Watch the Birdie (1951) Director: Jack Donahue. 2am Pacific. 5am Eastern.
Monday April 28th
The Fuller Brush Man (1948) Director: S. Sylvan Simon. 5pm Pacific. 8pm Eastern.
The Yellow Cab Man (1950) Director: Jack Donohue. 6:45pm Pacific. 9:45pm Eastern
Excuse My Dust (1951) Director: Roy Rowland. 8:30pm Pacific. 11:30pm Eastern
The storyline here does its job and little more. You side with and care about the main character, who comes off as very likable. At the same time the villains are the lowest sort of despicable scum you can imagine. This may be all the storyline really offers but frankly no one is watching for the story and for better or worse this is exactly the type of film you think it is going to be with no surprises. This being said there is quite a bit of dumb fun throughout this movie. The action scenes are quite exciting being well filmed, choregraphed and paced. Also, with how horrible this movie makes the villains, there is a cathartic charm to watching them be killed. While the villains seem like over the top cliché movie villains, sadly people like this exist and seeing them get their just desserts supplies the audience with a certain wish fulfillment. Also helping this film is Jason Statham as the lead character. He has proven himself to be a good action star, who can elevate any action film, and he definitely elevates this one.
All this being said, the film is so similar to many other action movies that it is hard for it to stand out. Instead, it just simply blends in with so many similar action films that overtime you will forget you have watched it.
This is far from a great movie but there is enough dumb fun to make it a fun trip to the movies.
The Penguin Lessons is in some ways two movies in one. There is the movie about a grumpy cynical man who becomes a better person after befriending a cute animal (in this case a penguin). There is also the film about the political turmoil in Argentina in 1976. What makes this film work is how well these two different types of stories are integrated together. Some of the ways this is done are pretty subtle. In many ways the penguin moves the other side of the story along making both parts feel completely connected. The penguin also helps imitate the change in the main character, which has a great effect on the political side of the story. These two different sides of the story also work very well on their own. The penguin story is sweet, charming, touching and even quite funny (I laughed watching this more than I expected to). What this movie has to say politically (about how good people should not stay silent when injustice is going on around them) is nothing revolutionary, but it is import and well told. Another key ingredient as to why this movie works is of course Steve Coogan's performance. He is an actor, who never fails to give a great performance, and he is perfect here, going from comedy to drama seemingly effortlessly. He also gives the character a certain likability and charm, even in the early scenes where he is a bit of a jerk.
This movie does have a few flaws though. Even at less than two hours, it still feels longer than it needs to be and some of the early scenes can drag a little bit. The supporting characters are also quite bland and underdeveloped.
All in all, despite some flaws, this is an excellent film.
Run Time: 20 minutes. Studio: Hal Roach Studios. Director: Edgar Kennedy. Supervising Director: Leo McCarey. Titles: H.M. Walker. Producer: Hal Roach. Main Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Otto Lederer, Anges Steele, Monty O'Grady, Christian J. Frank, Rolfe Sedan. Cinematographer: Floyd Jackman. Editor: Richard C. Currier.
Some of the best ideas for Laurel and Hardy comedies came from the simplest of places. In early January 1928, a gagman at the Hal Roach Studio saw a concert in the park. He mentioned this concert to Stan Laurel and supervising director, Leo McCarey. From this simple conversation came one of the most popular of Laurel and Hardy's silent output. Production for the film began that same January.
This short film features Stan and Ollie as musicians. They are playing in a band that is performing a concert in the park. When they ruin the concert and unintentionally drive the conductor crazy, they are fired. They try to make a living as street musicians but have little luck at this either. When the two get in an argument with each other this ends up leading to a massive conflict involving every passerby and the tearing of clothes.
This is a masterpiece of comedy. Not only are the gags funny on their own but the comedy here is perfectly structured. Though this film starts out quite funny, it continuously gets funnier as it goes on. Each gag sequence builds perfectly on the last until the film reaches its hilarious climax. The story itself may be slight, but it flows completely naturally and never feels as episodic as it easily could have in lesser hands. This is why when Robert Youngston later used the climax here for his compilation movie The Golden Age of Comedy (1958), it didn’t have the same effect as it does here. It is still funny there, but it is not as laugh out loud hilarious as it is when you watch the full short.
Those used to Laurel and Hardy's sound movies may be surprised to see that Stan is much more assertive here than he would be later. However, the Ollie character is completely formed here being the same character we know from the later films.
The bit where Stan and Ollie first start playing as street musicians begins with a single shot of the two doing a bit of business that lasts a whole 50 seconds. This shot perfectly shows just how great of a comedy team these two were, even this early in being a team. The scene is funny, and we never notice that the camera is held so long. Later there is a rare use of a tracking shot as Stan and Ollie walk down a street before Ollie falls in a manhole. These types of tracking shots were not common in silent slapstick comedies. However, this is the only way such a gag could be shot.
This film was directed by Edgar Kennedy, who is much better remembered as an actor. He has been called the master of the slow burn for his talent at showing his anger rise up slowly during frustrating moments. As an actor he is instantly recognizable to classic comedy fans as he worked with many of the most popular comics of the silver screen. Over his career he has appeared in film with Laurel and Hardy, The Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand, W.C. Feilds, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Charley Chase, the Our Gang Kids (also known as The Little Rascals) and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. He even briefly was a Keystone Kop. He also starred in a series of short comedies. That series ran from 1931 to 1948 and would feature 103 entries. He would even occasionally appear in dramatic movies such as San Fransico (1936) and A Star is Born (1937). His directing career would be much less prolific with most of it dedicated to comedy shorts. He did direct one other Laurel and Hardy short, From Soup to Nuts (1928). Some of the other short films he directed starred the likes of Ben Turpin, Chester Conklin and Hal Graves. Actor Rolfe Sedan (who played a drunk in this film) would later state, "Edgar Kennedy - there was a wonderful guy. He was a man who knew his business as a director." This seemed to be the common consensus among those who worked on the films Kennedy directed as he was well respected by everyone on the set.
This film was shot in a total of ten days. The first three days of shooting were January 17-19 and consisted of the concert scenes (shot at Exposition Park in Los Angeles). On January 20th and 21st, some outdoor scenes were shot on the Roach Lot. The crew took Sunday the 22nd off from shooting. They then resumed shooting outdoor scenes (including the big pants ripping finale) on the 23rd, 24th and 25th. The final two days (January 26-27) of shooting were done indoors on a set on the Roach lot and consisted of the boarding house scenes. The film was released to movie theaters on April 27, 1927.
Frank Spauto (who played a bit role in the film) later spoke about the filming of the pants-ripping finale. "We worked for two days on that thing. The pants-ripping was probably towards the end of the second day. Truthy, I don't remember Kennedy directing this one. But the director was on a platform truck with two cameras; then they had a camera over on the far side of this flatiron-shaped building, a camera on the left side of the scene and one by the curb. This fellow on the truck directed the whole thing, but he had two assistant directors who would get the people placed and tell them where they should come in. The first kicking would start it all, and we extras would be somewhere around the building. Some of us where out of range with the camera. And the director would say, 'Action. Start coming in slowly now ... you get in there ... don't go to fast. Don't mob up. Then you walk in, you look, and you start kicking'!"
The main cameraman on this film was Floyd Jackman. Floyd's older brother Fred had been a very prolific cameraman for the Mack Sennett Studio in the late teens and it wouldn't be long before Floyd also joined the movie business. Floyd had made a few westerns for Warner Brothers before moving to the Hal Roach lot. His first movie at the Roach lot was the dramatic feature film, Call of the Wild (1923). He would go on to work on the various short comedies starring the likes of Charley Chase, Mabel Normand and Max Davidson. You're Darn Tootin' was his last known film, as he would leave the movie business to become a dentist. His assistant cameraman on this film was Earl Stafford, who had begun his movie career at the Mack Sennett studio shooting short comedies starring the likes of Harry Langdon and Bill Bevan.
The little kid here is Monty O'Grady. This is one of the rare Hal Roach films he appeared in. His most famous role is in the classic Mary Pickford movie, Sparrows (1926). After the silent era, O'Grady would briefly leave movies, only to come back in 1938 as an adult. From 1938 to 1996, O'Grady would become a constant presence in movies and TV shows, though mostly as an extra. He was 11 when he made this picture and lived to 84 years old, passing away two days after his 84th birthday (March 8, 2000). The conductor is played by Otto Lederer. Though not well remembered Otto Lederer was in around 120 movies from 1912 to 1933. However, from 1932 to 1939, he would work primarily as a makeup artist. Probably his most famous role was in the revolutionary part-talkie film, The Jazz Singer (1927), where he played the comedy relief. He was born in 1886 in Prague and passed away at The Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills, California on September 3, 1965. The landlady is played by Agnes Steele. Born on August 22, 1881, in Melbourne, Australia, she mostly played small uncredited roles in movies from the early 1920's until her death on March 3, 1949. This is her only known role at the Hal Roach Studios. She was in the feature film, My Old Dutch (1926), which also features Edgar Kennedy. It has been speculated that perhaps this is how she ended up in this short. The policeman was played by Christian J. Frank. He was born in New York in 1890 and began his screen career in 1920, mostly working in small roles like his one here. Silent comedy fans might recognize him from his roles in the Harry Langdon films, The Sea Squawk (1925) and His First Flame (1927). He continued acting in movies until 1948. He passed away on December 10, 1967, in Los Angeles.
The title for this film must have been considered too American for overseas audiences as in the UK, it was released under the name, The Music Blasters, which many comedy historians believe was the working title for this short.
A few gags in this film may need explanation to a modern audience. On intertitle states “Very well, Sister McPherson, we go.” This is a reference to Aimee Semple McPherson, a Megachurch founder who was especially well known for her sudden 1926 disappearance and the large media circus around her return. She was also very well known for always asking for donations. The year this film was released Variety ran a story about her during a radio broadcast asking a worship musician to play another song, but the mike accidently also picked up her telling the musician to keep it short so that there would be time for collection. Earlier in the film there is a shot of the sheet music for the concert which states that it was arranged by W.C. Polla. William Conrad Polla was a popular novelty pianist around this time, who wrote the song Dancing Tambourine. He was also known for making orchestral arrangements for pieces by composer William Christopher Handy, best known for the jazz and blues standards Saint Louis Blues and Beale Street Blues. Below is Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra's 1927 recording of Dancing Tambourine.
Here are two exhibitors' reviews from Exhibitor's World Herald. "YOU'RE DARN TOOTIN': Laurel-Hardy - Good except finish which took off good flavor. Two Reels. - M.W. Mattecheek, Lark Theatre, McMinnville, Ore. - General Patronage." "YOU'RE DARN TOOTIN': Laurel-Hardy - Without a doubt this team cannot be beat. A Laurel and Hardy poster on your front means twenty minutes of real entertainment in your theatre. Print very good. Two Reels. - Stephen G. Brenner, New Eagle Theatre, Baltimore, Md. - General Patronage." An issue of the Motion Picture News (dated June 9, 1928) stated, "'Valley of the Giants' at the United Artists theatre was another unsuccessful film that was noticeably below par from every standpoint. The real hit of the bill was the Laurel-Hardy comedy, 'You're Darn Tootin'.' Even this though couldn't make a good show all alone, so the box office was very weak as a result."
For anyone interested, this film can be watched on YouTube below. It is also on the essential Flicker Alley Blu-ray set, Laurel and Hardy: Year Two.
Resources Used
Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies by Randy Skredvedt
Laurel and Hardy Year Two Blu-ray set liner notes by Randy Skredvedt
Laurel and Hardy Year Two Blu-ray set audio commentary by Randy Skredvedt
