"Say! You're not Wheeler and Woolsey, those two funny fellows in pictures?"
1934. A cute bit with Bert and Bob from one of Paramount's Hollywood on Parade shorts, directed by Louis Lewyn. Sparkling dialogue: Bert: "Where are we going?" Bob: "Where are we going? We're going to our preview, of course!" Bert: "Oh, that's right! The preview of our own picture!" Trivia: director Lewyn was married to Marion Mack, the actress who played the heroine in Buster Keaton's The General (1927). According to the IMDB, Lewyn also has a bit part in The General as "Soldier". I dare anyone to try and find him.
Labels: cinema, Wheeler and Woolsey
posted by Aaron Neathery at 5:22 PM
2 Comments:
I've got a "Paramount on Parade" short featuring movie stars attending a costume party (like they always seemed to do then). Fredric March is dressed as Bobby Clark! The resemblance is astounding. He even moves like him. Groucho, Chico and Zeppo Marx appear as well, as (respectively) Man O' War, a witch from "Macbeth" and all the actors in Hollywood. (Zeppo does that by gluing toupees all over his suit. His sense of humor was clearly from another galaxy.)
I've seen the Marxian portion of that short. Zeppo's costume seems to lend credence to the stories that he was the funniest Marx off-screen. It's a pity that Kalmar, Ruby, Ryskind, etc. couldn't build a character around that kind of thing, but let's face it.. no one ever even tried. Poor Herbert. I'd love to see March as Clark.. Speaking of Jekyll and Hyde, after Paul's suicide, Clark started wearing Paul's "dogskin" coat! Strangely symbolic, indeed!
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