Comedy Feuds

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.

That's Me All Over

by Geoff Collins

My absence from this site over the last couple of weeks has been a product of two factors: a busy period at work [who's he kidding?] and the heatwave which is gripping the whole of England like a bulldog's teeth around a postman's tackle. With temperatures soaring to 36 degrees centigrade, who wants to spend an evening in front of Rubberlegs the Useless Computer? That's Me All Over the Sofa is more like it. My cat Hodge, sprawled out over the floor with his tongue hanging out, looks as if he's been dropped from a great height. His only movement is an occasional tail-flick, as if to say "I'm still alive; don't put me in the bin-bag yet."

Excuses over. When I haven't been sitting in the garden after a hard day at The Finest Art Gallery Outside London [www.cecilhigginsartgallery.org - haven't mentioned them for a while!] with a cool toddy, I've been wading through some recently acquired DVDs, by coincidence most of them the product of Whitebread City, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. "Product" is exactly right of course. I've been a bit harsh about this studio in the past, and I haven't finished yet, but even this prestigious, conventional studio could come up with a few surprises. Here's one:

At the end of his "Singin' in the Rain" routine, Gene Kelly kindly gives his umbrella to a wet little man scurrying along the street. This is Snub Pollard; and it's an interesting thought that he could be playing himself here in this "1927-28 Hollywood", rushing home after another frustrating day at Weiss Brothers, churning out cheapo shorts with Martin Loback in a pathetic attempt to emulate the success of Stan and Ollie. Poor Snub. Think of him the next time you watch this wonderful number, and you'll find it's about Snub, not Gene. He's hardly recognizable, a bit player; yet he represents what really happened to a lot of people when sound came in.

Dusty old comedy is full of such surprises. In previous articles we've discussed the likelihood that many comedy sketches, even individual gags, frequently pre-date their accepted points of origin. Thus "Abbott and Costello" routines were being performed by the English double-act Collinson and Dean ten years earlier (the proof is on www.britishpathe.com; and check out Aaron's astute article on these guys in our Archive). Bill Collinson brought a load of "borrowed" American comedy back from his vaudeville tours in the 1920s, so this material probably dates from a lot earlier than this. "Keep the fire going till we get there" is a gag which has been traced from the first draft of A Day At the Races, via Robb Wilton, and as far back as Dan Leno, 1901. Authorship of the "cheap tailor" sketch "Belt in the Back", as seen in Glorifying the American Girl, was even the subject of a lawsuit [with a belt in the back?] between Cantor and Hearn, as detailed in Variety of May 11, 1949 and one of my previous articles. You'd think the subject would be exhausted by now - or I would. Wrong!

Tolerance of The Wizard of Oz past the endless, soul-destroying Munchkin sequence will reveal a treasure-trove of interpolated lines by the three giants of vaudeville, Third Bananas all, who accompany Dorothy on her journey. Not surprisingly Bert Lahr has the Lion's share. For example, when they all wake up in a snowstorm, he comments absent-mindedly "Unusual weather we're havin', ain't it?" Much-quoted, it's true, but we can't have enough of this seriously-underfilmed genius. This example almost passed me by; but it rang some familiar bells:

Scarecrow: Help! Help! Help!

Tin Man: Well, what happened to you?

Scarecrow: They tore my legs off and they threw them over there! Then they
took my chest out and they threw it over there!

Tin Man (indignant): Well, that's you all over!

Cowardly Lion: They sure knocked the stuffin's outa ya, didn't they?

(and he might have added "Gnong gnong gnong !" but he didn't. You can't have everything.)

....which all goes to show that this unique and original film isn't all that unique and original. Here's an earlier version of the same gag, excerpted in To See Such Fun. It's unattributed but my guess is that it's from Hold My Hand (1938):

Bad Guy (ferociously): I could pick you up and throw you north, south, east and west!

Stanley Lupino (nonchalantly laughs): Heh heh heh! That's me all over! (adjusts his tie as he walks away)

To See Such Fun is a 1977 compilation of scenes from fifty years of British film comedy. It's all in black-and-white, even the colour clips - presumably in a well-meaning attempt to prevent eyestrain - and despite some ferociously choppy editing it gives us the chance to see a lot of fantastic archive material and some incredibly rare Third Bananas. Stanley Lupino's already been mentioned on this site, and will be again, dear readers, I promise you, for he is the Thirdest Banana of all. His version of this venerable gag is placed alongside - and uncharitably edited into - a version from Radio Parade of 1935, which is performed by Haver and Lee.

Haver (with appropriate gestures): One of these days I'll lose my temper with you, and I'll take a hold of your arms and I'll break 'em over there and throw 'em over there! Then I'll get a hold of your legs and I'll break 'em over here and throw 'em over there! Then I'll get your head and crrrush it up, right up like that, and throw it back there! Whadda ya think of that?

Lee (sad, resigned to his fate): That's me all over!

"Haver" is American-accented, tall, bespectacled and annoyed. During World War Two he was "Clay Keyes", host of a radio variety show "The Old Town Hall". "Lee" is a small, baggy-trousered Chaplinesque Englishman. They must be the most obscure double-act in the whole of British music-hall history; I don't even know their first names, or what became of them. One thing is certain: they outclass all the movie's other acts, who are all professional entertainers pretending to be "talented amateurs", but actually coming across as untalented amateurs. Was British variety really this bad?

Hardly. Radio Parade of 1935 is a flashy Art-Deco sequel to the 1933 Radio Parade, a far less stylish film which preserved some far superior talents [and despite the loss of the first reel, it's available for viewing on www.britishpathe.com. Type in "Claude Hulbert" for access to all of it]. The 1935 edition, ballyhoo and obnoxious colour sequences notwithstanding, is obviously the second team. Will Hay, who looks just like Boris Karloff here, should have carried his impersonation a stage further and killed them all off, one by one.

Righto, as we're supposed to say over 'ere: Third Banana readers, it's over to you. Tell us more about Haver and Lee. Their bleak, aggressive crosstalk is far from the cosy warmth of the British double-acts such as Flanagan and Allen, and as such, they stand out as something fresh and different. What became of them? Why didn't they appear in other films, newsreels or recordings? [Pathe has a couple of juicy clips which I'll download when Rubberlegs lets me; but if your computer has been manufactured since 1960 you should be able to view these]. And one final question: who wrote "That's me all over"? We'd love to come across an even earlier version, which just goes to show how sad we really are.

That's me all over - until it gets a bit cooler anyway. Goodnight.

Will the real Gink Shiner please stand up?

click on thumbnails for full-sized images

In 1929, as a part of the great Broadway raid that first brought The Cocoanuts and Rio Rita to the talking screen, Warner Brothers purchased the film rights to Hold Everything, the musical comedy that had done for Bert Lahr what Poppy did for W.C. Fields. While Bert would have jumped at the opportunity to travel to the West Coast to reprise his role as would-be prizefighter Gink Shiner, but an ironclad contract kept him touring with the show. Instead, Warners cast local boy Joe E. Brown in the role (presumably saving quite a bit on salary). Former acrobat Brown was no newcomer to film, having been appearing in talkies as a "comedian" of no set personality and no particular distinction since 1928, and Hold Everything offered him a tremendous opportunity. Unfortunately, as Brown had yet to develop a real screen personality, he found himself with nothing but Bert Lahr's performance to fall back on. It seems likely that he was also egged on by the producers to imitate Lahr. Certainly, given the play's decidedly weak book, the only real asset Hold Everything had in the first place was Bert Lahr's showstopper performance (and the hit song "You're the Cream In my Coffee"). Movie audiences weren't going to be fooled into believing Brown was Lahr, but the studio was probably determined to deliver as close an approximation of the stage production as possible. The end result was Joe E. Brown playing Bert Lahr playing Gink Shiner. Bert Lahr, to put it lightly, was not amused. While gags and skits may have been stolen and re-stolen by every comic in vaudeville, characterization was sacrosanct. Obviously, if gag material was public property, a comic's reputation had to rely upon those mannerisms and specialties unique to his/her act. Brown, flouting the taboo, had apparently even gone so far as to purloin Lahr's vocal gimmicks (even "gnong gnong gnong"? Say it ain't so, Joe!). Adding insult to injury, critics lauded Brown's performance as Lahr as Shiner and he even walked away with a juicy contract that would make him Warner's star comic for the much of the decade. Incensed, and quite rightly seeing his potential future in film circling the drain, Bert Lahr wrote an angry letter to the editor of Variety (3/28/30);

It seems an outrage that a comedian can gain profit and recognition by deliberately lifting and copying another comedian's style of work. This is hurting my reputation, livelihood, and future in talking pictures.

Lahr struck back in 1931 with the film version of his second great Broadway hit Flying High, produced by the rather more prestigious MGM. The film's press materials all refer to Lahr as "the most imitated stage comedian" as though there were dozens of would-be Lahrs glutting the nation's theaters, all chanting "gnong gnong gnong!". Despite Flying High's decent box office, it was a dead end for Lahr as MGM did not sign him for further features. Instead, Lahr spent most of the 30s appearing in inexpensive if amusing Educational shorts (all produced within a stone's throw of Broadway) while his rival was churning out hit after hit for Warner Brothers. Like his friend Bobby Clark, Lahr had a personality that was decidedly a touch too extreme for film stardom. His standout performance in The Wizard of Oz is, after all, mitigated by the fact that he's playing a fairy tale lion. As a human being, the Bert Lahr of the mid-30s is outrageous and absolutely exhausting, the nearest thing to a living cartoon character the talkies had yet seen. By 1939, though, Lahr had begun to tone down his performances and would in time become one of Broadway's most nuanced and versatile comics, making his replacement by Red Skelton in Du Barry Was a Lady (1943) all the more frustrating (without Lahr and Merman the film is a washout, although it's a kick seeing young Zero Mostel as Rami the Swami openly aping Harry Ritz). Ultimately, Lahr must remain something of an enigma; a major American comedy star with half a film career and most of his greatest moments on the stage left unrecorded.

As for Joe E. Brown, he quit Warners in 1937 to make movies for David Loew. The cheap and comparatively shoddy pictures that resulted did nothing for Brown's career. By the end of WWII, his days as a star were effectively over.

Gnong But Not Forgotten

by Geoff Collins

This is only a short piece of writing because it's about a short piece of film.

How I wish The Great Ziegfeld could be described as a short piece of film. Since mentioning this style-free MGM epic a couple of weeks ago, Ivy and I have actually managed to sit through it right to the end. Hopefully the endurance medals are in the post. As more than three hours of shockingly expensive, tastelessly inept musical numbers unfolded before me (I seem to recall that one number involved wolfhounds - but don't ask me to watch it again) it occurred to me that Ziegfeld employed some of the greatest comedians in America. Yet with the exception of Fanny Brice, whose two songs are annoyingly interrupted by dialogue, none of Ziegfeld's comedy stars were in the movie. We've discussed this before, and I'm sure we'll get back to it again. In the meantime...

In search of some genuine Ziegfeld footage, I had a look at our old friend [ahhh, you know what's coming now] www.britishpathe.com. I typed in "Ziegfeld" and two film clips popped up. In one, there's the great man himself, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., talking to the camera about a beautiful brunette he's chosen for the '31 Follies; and the other item, "Stepping-Out Sisters", offers a genuine surprise: rehearsals for Ziegfeld's last show Hot-Cha, which opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre on March 8, 1932.

The clip opens with a deftly-choreographed dance routine by the chorus girls, the last piece of "genuine Ziegfeld" (as opposed to posthumous) put on film; then there's a swift cut, and the caption introduces us to "Bert and Buddy". Guess who we're talkin' about here.

Did British audiences in 1932 recognise these guys? Bert Lahr had just made the movie version of Flying High (I've never seen it and neither has Aaron; could one of our readers kindly provide us with a copy?); and Charles "Buddy" Rogers had been a movie star since the late silents. For a few precious seconds, they give us a crosstalk act.

Buddy: They tell me the women in this show are the most beautiful in the world. How about it, huh?

Bert [coyly]: Well! Now you're speakin' up my alley! huh huh huh... Hey, ya wanna know sump'n, Buddy?

Buddy: Yeah.

Bert: Well, I don't wanna talk about myself - huh - they're crazy about me!!

Buddy: Well, I can understand that, sure, why not?

Bert: They're wild about me - huh - they won't...they won't let me alone! Here comes some now - watch me, boy! [to girls, as they approach] Hiya girls!!!

The girls rush past Bert, ignoring him completely, and gather adoringly around Buddy.

Buddy [to Bert]: Well, thanks Bert. So long! [to girls, as they squeal with delight] Shall we...er...?

Buddy and the girls walk offstage. Big close-up of Bert's annoyed sideways glance. Then, cross-eyed and gazing just off-camera, he emits a resonant bellow. He looks and sounds like a moose receiving an unexpected sexual assault.

Bert: Gnong gnong gnong! [Fade-out]

This was Bert's trademark, a leftover from his vaudeville days. It's the first time I've seen it on film, and it's genuinely bizarre. Like so many of the strange and wonderful people you've met on this site, Bert's a true Third Banana, a supreme talent who was justly revered in his time but who's been neglected and mostly forgotten. Hollywood didn't know what to do with him and often misused his talents. He was the Cowardly Lion, of course, but this one great role may have actively damaged his chances in Hollywood. As he said himself "How many lion parts are there ?"

Occasionally Bert did get the breaks he deserved. Ship Ahoy is a good showcase for him; but in retrospect it looks like an audition for Du Barry Was a Lady. Bert even gets to wear his Louis XV costume from the Broadway show, but to no avail: when MGM made the Technicolor movie of Du Barry a few months later, Bert's role went to his Ship Ahoy co-star Red Skelton. Red's pretty good in the part, but you can get some idea of what was lost when you watch the scene where he's got an arrow stuck in his arse, and timid little doctor Chester Clute is trying to remove it. Moderately amusing; but try to imagine how this would play with Bert Lahr instead of Skelton - all those yells and facial expressions and animal noises. As his son John so aptly put it: "He made a most gorgeous fuss."

There are a few other highlights from Bert's sporadic film career - we'll comment on Flying High when one of our generous readers sends us a copy [second subtle hint!] - and it's almost worth sitting through Meet the People, a truly crappy MGM wartime musical, to see Bert perform a Harburg-Arlen speciality number that's at least the equal of "King of the Forest". Uncomfortably attired in a parody of naval officer's uniform, Bert's proclaiming what a great sailor he is. He crosses his eyes, he bellows, and he just about manages to contain his anger when the trombonist's slide keeps slipping in from offscreen and catching his nose. See it if you can. This is part of our job, dear readers, to find the pearls in the porridge.

(By the way, has anybody seen Bert's version of "Song of the Woodsman", which is allegedly in Merry-Go-Round of 1938. Has anybody seen Merry-Go-Round of 1938? Because we'd like to comment on another rare comedian, Jimmy Savo. But more than this, of course, we'd like to see Flying High.)

Bert was always being ripped off by lesser comics (Joe E. Brown, Berle, even the cartoon lion Snagglepuss) and his career in Hollywood, apart from Flying High [third subtle hint], consists of high spots in the starring vehicles of others - which is why the emergence of the little Pathe rehearsal clip is a cause for celebration. It's more fun than the whole of The Great Ziegfeld put together. And why wasn't Bert in that? What's the idea? What's the ideeeaaa???

Actually, as we all know, Bert himself is a cause for celebration. This selfish, insecure worrier gave us pure comedy with humanity; and don't be fooled by all those half-assed copiers of his style. He was truly original. Who cares if he played to the gallery? I'll take a seat in that gallery any time.

And as a final thought, John Lahr's tribute to his dad, Notes on a Cowardly Lion, is the best theatrical biography I've ever read. It covers everything. Find a copy - but, more importantly, find us a copy of Flying High....

Gnong gnong gnong!

"The best of the old comedy favorites, the brightest of the new stars"

Founded in 1915 by Earle W. Hammons for the production and distribution of classroom films, Educational Pictures quickly, and lucratively, shifted gears and began producing comedy shorts. Educational hit its peak sometime in the mid-20s, releasing Jack White's acclaimed Lloyd Hamilton shorts and distributing Otto Messmer's Felix the Cat cartoons. But in 1933, following a financially disastrous partnership with Mack Sennett to produce features (as Sono Art-World Wide Pictures), Educational was forced to sell off its exchanges and reopen at Paramount's old Astoria, Long Island facility (where The Cocoanuts and Follow The Leader were shot). Now releasing through 20th Century Fox, Educational had become a strange twilight zone of down-on-their-luck silent era names like Buster Keaton and moonlighting Broadway celebrities like Bert Lahr and Joe Cook, taking advantage of the studio's convenient proximity. Not only silent era performers but producers and directors found Educational a friendly port during the industry's turbulent transition to sound. The studio's product was wildly uneven during its final decade with even the best shorts looking extremely threadbare. As cheap as the shorts may have been, and as poor as the writing frequently was, the talent on display was undeniably impressive.

I found this 1936 trade ad for Educational on Ebay last month and it nicely illustrates the bizarre blend of "old comedy favorites" and "new stars" that populated the studio's product at the time. Buster Keaton, at a low point in his life but still capable of wonderful work, and the brilliant Joe Cook are clearly the studio's prize performers (Joe Cook had no better film vehicles than his shorts), but the lower ranks are pretty fascinating, too. Bert Lahr, the most famous of the second-stringers depicted, should have been a major film personality (IMO) but his film career never clicked and today he's remembered primarily for his performance as the Cowardly Lion. Tom Howard, Joe Cook's stooge from Rain Or Shine (1930), had his own series, appearing with his own stooge George Shelton. Both went on to star through the 1940s in the radio quiz parody It Pays To Be Ignorant. Until I saw this ad, I had no idea that professional milquetoast Ernest Truex had ever been the featured performer in anything, let alone his own series of shorts. He found work in film and on TV through 1965 as the meek next-door neighbor or the ineffectual boss. Truex's wife, Mary Jane Barrett (bottom right), appeared with him frequently on Broadway and, it seems, at Educational, although she doesn't have an IMDB listing. The rest of the comics are the aforementioned "new stars" and of them, only Tim and Irene Ryan, the poor man's Burns and Allen, went on to have any kind of substantial screen career. Gruff Tim and madcap Irene became a standard feature of poverty row musical comedies through 1944. I've never seen any of their work for Educational but The Wacky Family (1936) must be one of the weakest film titles of all time. Tim, a prolific B-comedy screenwriter, died in 1956. Irene Ryan, who divorced Tim in 1942, went on to lasting fame as Granny Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies. Incidentally, Tim and Irene are featured on the original 1934 sheet music for Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town. I'm assuming they introduced the song on radio. Does anyone out there know? The team of Patricola and West had a brief series of for Educational between 1935 and 1938, reportedly interchangeable with that of Educational's other musical comedy duo, Timberg and Rooney (curiously not depicted). It seems that Earl Oxford appeared in exactly one short for the studio and I can't find even that many for the amiable looking Fred Lightner (any relation to Winnie? There's a definite resemblance). Singer Niela Goodelle headlined her own series (and appeared at least once with Earl Oxford on Broadway), but I'm unsure about Nell Kelly, another Broadway singer.

This eclectic lineup represents Educational's last gasp. E. W. Hammons, eager to re-enter the features market ever since his 1931-33 partnership with Sennett, gambled it all and lost. In 1938, he merged Educational with Grand National Pictures just as it was sinking into bankruptcy, apparently in a bid to save it. But Grand National's situation was terminal and, when it finally folded in 1939, it took what remained of Educational with it (Fox took over distribution of the Terrytoons). Just a few years later, adding insult to injury, a vault fire at Fox's Deluxe labs destroyed a tremendous number Educational's negatives, all but wiping out the studio's (presumably superior) silent output and erasing most of the film careers of Lloyd Hamilton and Lupino Lane, a staggering blow to the record of the silent era.