Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.
Friday, May 09, 2008
George Wallace?
And the obscure classic comedians just keep a-coming! Meet George Wallace, reportedly Australia's most popular depression-era comic. He's rather like an Aussie proto-Costello. I'd love to see more, but these clips are all I've found thus far.
His Royal Highness (1932) George is no slouch when it comes to storytelling, pratfalls, and dancing. The material may be weak, but he knows how to sell it.
His Royal Highness (1932) Wadayaknow.. An Australian "crazy kingdom" social satire released between Cracked Nuts and Duck Soup. Shades of Hugh Herbert.
His Royal Highness (1932) "Daddy smack!"
Absolutely excellent interplay between Wallace and a straightman in this clip from Harmony Row (1933).
Harmony Row (1933) Wow.. Just.. Wow. Pathos? Comedy? Both? Neither? The little boy is Bill Kerr, later a regular on Hancock's Half Hour in the 50s.
Harmony Row (1933) George does a seemingly partially improvised comedy boxing routine before a highly appreciative audience.
Pay attention, readers! We're delighted to present the Third Banana-est clip of all time, a sequence from a long-forgotten movie, featuring long-forgotten people; but it's dazzling. Cheer Up is a 1936 Quota Quickie, one of those cheap little British "fillers" churned out by the hundred in order to fulfill the terms of the Cinematograph Films Act, 1927, section 19. Most of these undemanding pictures are, it goes without saying, absolute rubbish - and Cheer Up is no classic - but we at the Banana are just about sad enough to wade through all that porridge to get to the juicy jammy bits.
We've met Stanley Lupino before. An entry in our Archive (December 2006) gives a bit of background information, as well as the Lupino Family Tree; but we now know that this Punch-like little West End star, Ida's dad, was born in 1893 and not '94; his impressive memorial in Lambeth Cemetery, Tooting, states that he was 49 when he died in 1942. I didn't need to make the Pilgrimage - although I still intend to do so - because there are some useful images on www.findagrave.com. Stanley's final resting place looks somewhat neglected and the Lupino Family Tree appears to be growing right through the middle of it. Are there no Lupinos around today who could tidy up this hallowed spot? Sixty years ago there were dozens of 'em!
Stanley was frequently partnered on stage - but sadly only three times on film - by another small, quirky West End entertainer, Laddie Cliff. They worked so well together that when Laddie was unavailable, Stanley needed to find a Laddie-substitute, a bespectacled Second Banana to play his best friend. Here it's chubby Welsh character actor Roddy Hughes, a former Marlborough House schoolteacher who left his chosen profession for the joys of (amongst many other things) three years on tour as Hard-Boiled Herman in Rose Marie.
The cafe proprietor is played by the appropriately-named Syd Crossley. Syd always looked aggrieved and it's no wonder: in Hollywood he'd been cast opposite Stan Laurel as one of the tramps in the 1926 Duck Soup. We'll never know the full story but at the last minute he was replaced by Oliver Hardy. Syd plays bit parts in many American silents - he's the bartender in West of Hot Dog and the taxi driver in the chase sequence of Speedy - but he's most frequently to be found scowling his way through British talkies as exasperated waiters or policemen - or cafe proprietors. Maybe he was contemplating What Might Have Been: Laurel and Crossley. Here's a fascinating exercise: imagine all the great Laurel and Hardy scenes with Syd playing Ollie's part. No, forget it; it's just too sad and it's not actually that fascinating.
This scene from Cheer Up gives us one of Syd's rare beatific smiles, and it's a genuine one. He's supposed to be playing a gruff, unsympathetic character but he's obviously having a great time with Stanley and Roddy, and it shows.
Readers, we hope this will make you smile. It should do; this is what the Third Banana is all about. We give you: The Steak and Kidney Pudding Song.
As a postscript I would like to thank Alan and Jennie Clarke for their invaluable help in making this and many other rare clips available for your enjoyment.
Sid Field? Haven't we mentioned him before? Well, yes, and it's about time we mentioned him again. If you'd care to take a little dip into our Archive for December 2005 you'll find an article in which I attempted to explain why this beloved but shamefully neglected mobile-faced buffoon was so influential; but in 2005 we didn't have the film clips.... Exactly why is such an important and talented comedian so obscure? For a start, he died when he was 45; that doesn't help. Neither does the sad fact that dear old Sid only made three movies and they're all deeply buried in various vaults. Since 2005 there's been no news at all of his first effort That's the Ticket, reportedly a rare survivor of the Doodlebug attack on the Warner studio at Teddington. After a frustrating evening on Google (I have many such evenings) I could find no trace of its whereabouts, not even a production still. Readers: Helllpppp! We need to find this film!!!! London Town hasn't been shown anywhere since its almost apologetic appearance in an afternoon slot on Channel Four in the summer of 1986, in a much-edited version. This is why That's the Ticket would be such a welcome find; it would be a short, cheap, sharply-edited little quota-quickie, whereas London Town is a vast, lumbering behemoth. The full version runs 126 minutes. Channel Four discarded about a quarter of this, including Sid's "spiv" sketch (think of James Beck as Private Walker in Dad's Army and you'll get some idea of it) but at least lucky viewers were able to watch him as the Photographer, the Golfer and the Drunk. So how does London Town hold up after all these years in the wilderness? Frankly, it still stinks. England's finest comedian (yes, at the time, this was demonstrably true) flounders for two hours because nobody gave him anything funny to do. Sid's a very appealing actor and the intentions are surely honourable but the whole premise is just so wrong. It's loosely based on the real Sid Field Story - our hero is trapped in provincial obscurity for decades and finally becomes a star in middle-age - but it's depressingly weighed down with dreary plot scenes and truly horrific musical numbers. Nearly an hour into the film, frustrated understudy Sid finally gets his Big Chance in the Big West End Show. With the immortal - and uncredited - Jerry Desmonde as his straightman, this is what he does:
That was "Portrait Study" from the 1944 stage show Strike It Again, and it was written by "Martin Lane", a pseudonym for the Punch contributor J. B. Boothroyd; hence Sid's name in the sketch. There's a BBC airtake of this material, with a live audience, in which Sid and Jerry take it much more slowly, to far greater effect. Many of the lines, including one or two not in the movie ("Ohhh...hasn't it been cold?!!") get huge laughs. In the film, presumably because Sid's supposed to be "nervous", he races through it, and the lack of audience laughter make it seem as if he's dying out there. Anyway, as we've now established that Sid's been a success, the audience can relax and enjoy/endure approximately fifty-two more musical numbers - during which they will become morose and suicidal - until at last, more than an hour and three-quarters into this mess, Sid and Jerry take the stage again for the Golf Sketch. Not the greatest script in the world, but this was one of the routines that made Sid a star after all those years trudging around the grim towns of 'thirties Britain. (Readers, they're still grim towns.) Before we look at the sketch, here's a rare article from the June 1943 Theatre World, in which we meet Sid at the time of his first West End breakthrough: In order for this to work at all, you'll have to take yourself back to the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1943 and imagine Sid in full flight, playing the audience like a Stradivarius. The art direction here is by Ernst Fegte, who also worked on The Golf Specialist; so this was Ernst's secondstagey golf routine. What a difference, though, between Bill Fields and Sid Field:
Let's make one thing quite clear: arguably the most insulting invention in the world is Canned Laughter ("Look, something funny's happening! Let's all laugh!") but in this instance it might actually help. Sid goes through his full range - and what a range! - but the effect is spooky and a bit chilly, like Chaplin's routines in Limelight. Presumably they thought that the audiences in the cinemas would provide the laughter; but this rarely happened. London Town was such a flop that it was taken off after a couple of days in many cinemas. The smell of turkey spreads quickly.
Fortunately, your introduction to the elusive Sidney Arthur Field needn't cause you chronic indigestion. If you watch those sketches again - and please, do so very soon - you'll see how he influenced so many notable postwar British comedians (and Jimmy Jewel). Aaron's even pointed out Sid's physical and stylistic resemblance to Terry Jones - something I hadn't even considered, but it's quite valid - thus providing an unlikely but legitimate link between a lovable old-time Variety comic and the Pythons. But for me it's not so much what Sid says or does, it's just how he is. He had beautiful precision and repose yet was able to take off and roam freely around the stage like an English Bert Lahr. This is no exaggeration; Sid could have easily played the Cowardly Lion's English cousin. The American servicemen who saw his London shows in '43-'45 never forgot. Neither did Bob Hope, or Danny Kaye; and neither should we. Unfortunately Sid was like Bert in other ways: he was an insecure worrier. John Fisher's affectionate biography What a Performance charitably doesn't mention the booze, but it was a major problem; Sid looks a lot older than forty-one in those sketches. The result was that it all caught up with him, on February 3 1950. He didn't grow old, and he didn't do any television, so he's a rare one, but undeniably a great one. Thankfully he got some of his gentle art on film. Let's enjoy what we have. One more clip? Okay, then: "something appealing, something appalling". We'll leave you - for the time being - with this item, which mysteriously falls into both categories. It's so obviously an attempt by two Hollywood songwriters to duplicate "The Lambeth Walk" yet it only succeeded in offending Londoners all over the world. Kay Kendall is radiantly lovely, even with her original nose; Two-Ton Tessie O'Shea bludgeons everybody else off the screen; singing drummer Jack Parnell does his laconic Ray McKinley impression; and Sid gives us his version of the Loose-Limbed Drunk on a Staircase, borrowed from Leon Errol and subsequently borrowed yet again by Freddie Frinton. This is "The 'Ampstead Way". Gor blimey! It's Jaw-Dropping Time!
Did I mention Sid's third film, Cardboard Cavalier? To be continued....
The Third Banana heartily endorses this without reservation:
Internationally Acclaimed Theatrical Clown Show
"BAMBOUK"
Bald Comedy. In Tails.
comes to New York City April 16, 2008
at the American Theatre of Actors
New York - Award-winning American theatrical clown show "Bambouk" has toured internationally since 2003, and now they bring their vaudeville-inspired silent comedy to New York City for a limited run. Called "Pioneers in the new face of clown" and "Inspiring and Amazing" by audiences from Alaska to China, San Juan to Japan, this intimate theatrical silent spectacle recalls Samuel Beckett, Buster Keaton and Bugs Bunny. Magic, music and manipulation are woven into a seamless blend of character comedy and theatrics not to be missed by lovers of physical theatre, silent film comedies and Warner Brothers Cartoons. Bambouk opens on April 16, 2007 at American Theatre of Actors' Chernuchin Theatre (314 West 54th Street, Second Floor).
Bambouk is the creation of two American theatre clowns, Matthew Duncan and Brian Foley. Masters of the variety arts, Matthew and Brian juggle plates, flip hats, ride a six-foot unicycle, play the accordion, ukulele and musical saw, even make an audience member float in mid-air! Wearing no makeup, just red noses and tuxedos, Bambouk is THE clown show for people afraid of clowns!
BAMBOUK has opened for the Drifters, the Platters and Charo, and shared the stage with award-winning circus artists from the Moscow Circus, Nanjing Acrobatic Troupe, Big Apple Circus and Cirque du Soleil. Together and individually they have been the featured physical comedians in stage productions, ice shows, cruise ships and theme parks since 1990. BAMBOUK has been seen multiple times in China, Japan, Alaska, Mexico, the Caribbean islands, and throughout the contintental U.S.
BAMBOUK
Bald Comedy. In Tails.
Opens April 16 - April 27, 2008
American Theatre of Actors located at 314 West 54th Street, 2nd Floor
Performance Schedule: Tuesday-Friday at 8pm; Saturday 2pm and 8pm;
Sunday 2pm and 7pm
Tickets are $30 for Adults, $20 for Children aged 8 to 13
Not suitable for children under 8. Recommended for Adults.
Bob Woolsey's only solo feature may be a cheap Poppy knockoff, but at least Al Boasberg was trying to deliver a vehicle properly suited to Bob Woolsey's talents. The same can't be said for Bert Wheeler's contemporary Too Many Cooks,a patience-straining timewaster which features no songs, no dancing, no action, and Roscoe Ates as comic relief. It's altogether odd considering that RKO was banking on Bert, not Bob, as the big solo success. Here are some fun newspaper ads from July 25-August 18, 1931.
From The Evening Huronite, August 26th, 1941. Dorothy Kilgallen relates yet another tale of Joe E. Brown's nasty character-pilfering habit. This is also the first and only time I've ever heard it suggested that there was some kind of rivalry between Bobby Clark and, of all people, Bob Woolsey. If Clark and Woolsey got into a fight, who would win? My money's on Clark.
