The Wheeler & Woolsey Files

Ogden Standard-Examiner, July 8, 1930

Galveston Daily News, December 14, 1930

Uniontown Morning Herald, April 30, 1932

Oakland Tribune, February 14, 1932

Florence Morning News, May 24, 1932

Big Spring Daily Herald, January 8, 1933

Waterloo Sunday Courier, February 26, 1933

Lowell Sun, January 20, 1934

Lowell Sun, January 27, 1934

Lowell Sun, January 29, 1934

Oakland Tribune, February 24, 1935

Oakland Tribune, February 24, 1935

Brownsville Herald, May 19, 1935. BEN WOOLSEY??

Modesto Bee, August 27, 1936. Yep! Ben Woolsey!

Galveston Daily News, November 1, 1938

Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, November 1, 1938

Tucson Daily Citizen, January 16, 1968

Stuff and Nonsense, Part III

Many thanks to reader Billie T. for sending along these beautiful high-res scans!

"The Four Horsemen of Mirth". This advance ad for Duck Soup from Paramount's 1932 exhibitors' yearbook hints at what the early drafts of the screenplay might have looked like. Poor Zeppo's role as Bob Firefly, President of the International Beauty Conference, was whittled away to practically nothing by the time the film was actually shot. Harpo's "Snoopy" was apparently the story's only spy. Note that Paramount considered the film's breathless barrage of gags a selling point in that it required multiple viewings for a patron to catch all of the lines. Irving Thalberg certainly didn't feel the same way and therefore vast chasms of silence follow the Boys' gags in the MGM pictures, presumably meticulously timed with stopwatches. BAH! The Paramounts are better.. period.

French poster for A Day at the Races (1936). Um, excuse me, but what the HELL is going on here?? Something unspeakably horrible, I suspect.

Beautiful one-sheet for Hips Hips Hooray! (1934). Only problem is that all of the women's faces are completely indistinguishable from one another. Is that supposed to be Thelma Todd or Dorothy Lee between Bert and Bob?

".. wanna shake your tree." Poster for Harry Langdon's first Sennett comedy, Picking Peaches (1924). Sennett's confidence in Langdon was apparently absolute.

The Third Banana: Pressed For Time Edition

Sorry about the quietness around here lately, folks. I'm up to my neck in Real World Hassles so I haven't had many opportunities to post over the past two weeks. Again, I'm completely open to guest posts from readers so if have, say, an in-depth analysis of the comedy of George Ovey you've been aching to make public, let me know. Meanwhile, I have two things to share. First, this January 9th, 1938 episode of The Mickey Mouse Theater of the Air features (most of) the original voice artists for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves including Scotty Mattraw (Bashful), Otis Harlan (Happy), Roy Atwell (Doc), and best of all, Billy Gilbert as Sneezy. This is one of the few recordings I've heard of Billy performing his sneezing shtick in front of a live audience (in the 50s, Billy did the routine on Andy's Gang on TV and the kids in the audience would go wild). His appearance begins around 17:45, and he manages to not only crack up the audience but host John Hiestan as well. Best, you can hear Billy outrageously ramp up the convulsions as he plays to the crowd, something you'll never hear in his film performances. Wonderful stuff. Although Walt Disney and Clarence Nash are on hand as Mickey and Donald, Goofy is performed by Stuart Buchanan, not Pinto Colvig, so Buchanan may be handling Sleepy and Grumpy as well. Trivia: Lucille La Verne, who reprises her role as the Witch here ("Hello, Disney! Have a bite??") played Aunt Hannah opposite Wheeler and Woolsey in Kentucky Kernels (1934). Just thought you'd like to know. And speaking of Bert and Bob, here's "I'm that Way About You" from Caught Plastered (1931). Watch for Arthur Housman as one of the drunks at the bar (what else?).

Hold 'Em Jail

I'm bogged down with work this week so I'm posting a clip that doesn't need much setup. This is the single funniest sequence from Wheeler and Woolsey's 1932 prison movie spoof, Hold 'Em Jail, and one of Edgar Kennedy's all-time greatest moments. Wonderfully, Edgar is already frustrated as hell and doing the "slow burn" before Bert and Bob even enter the scene.

Friday Ends n' Odds

Foistly, a new Biffle and Shooster comedy short written by our pal Unca' Nick Santa Maria! As an exhibitor might have written in a trade journal in 1934, "Renting and Raving is a real honey of a picture. All my patrons really go for the antics of these two nuts. Take my advice and book this one! Hot dog!".

Secondly, Hook, Line, and Sinker (1930) starring Wheeler and Woolsey (and a pre-personality Hugh Herbert) has finally reared its head over at archive.org. And it's a nice print, too.. not the blurry, washed-out TV print with the re-shot titles and the muddy audio that has been making the rounds on bargain DVDs. You can download it in five different flavors, 3.7 GB being more than adequate for DVD. Hopefully this means that Half Shot at Sunrise (1930) isn't far behind! And while I'm at it, I should also mention that Harold Lloyd's swansong The Sin of Harold Diddlebock is now available at archive.org, too! I'm not much of a fan of Harold's last picture, but the first ten to fifteen minutes are undeniably brilliant and promise a movie that Sturges couldn't deliver.

Thoidly, also from archive.org comes this silent, battered, Dutch-subtitled print of Gum Shoes (1935) starring Monty Collins and Tom Kennedy. If you've never seen it with sound (and if you can't read Dutch), you may be surprised to discover how easily you can follow the plot, a testament to Columbia's strict adherence to the forms and formulas of silent slapstick comedy (not to mention their habit of recycling gags and scripts).

"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.

More Further Adventures of Wheeler and Woolsey

More Film Fun madness from 1939. I simply can't imagine Bob delivering a line like "Coo! That bad lad wants blowing up!"

The Further Adventures of Wheeler and Woolsey

Courtesy of Geoff's copy of the 1939 Film Fun Annual. Wacky hi-jinx ensue when Bert and Bob get a hold of one of those air-tight rubber horse costumes the kids are so crazy about these days. And, dear LORD!! What the heck is Bob doing to Bert's head in the banner there?? OUCH!!
And I thought the Martin and Lewis feud was vicious!

Up Millcreek (Without a Paddle)

by Geoff Collins

Classic? Musicals??

You know, strange as it may seem, Third Banana writers these days give each other very unusual gifts. Obviously, these presents will have some connection with obscure and often prehistoric comedy which, gnome-like, we can sit and absorb and enjoy unbothered by the shallow whims of popular culture.

As our desire to explore the outer limits of arcane humour takes hold even more, it was with joy that I informed Aaron of my latest find, in a cheapo store in my home town of boring old Bedford, in England: a fifty--film DVD set from Millcreek Entertainment entitled Classic Musicals. First question: how did they get fifty movies into a box set measuring 4x13x19 mm ? Easy; on twelve double-sided DVDs. Some of the films are less than an hour long so these are squeezed three to a side. Next question: Are they Classic Musicals ? Wellll.... Question Three: how did Aaron react when I told him my good fortune? I'll quote from his reply:

"AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!! Now I gotta get you another Christmas gift!!!!!! This is just plain Spooky!!!! SPOOKY, I TELL YOU!!!!! Ah, well.."

Calm little chap, isn't he? So clearly this package is available on both sides of the Atlantic. For our British readers, I suggest you try The Works, where it's now reduced to £15. Question Four: how can Millcreek put out fifty movies so cheaply? Because they're all in the Public Domain, that's why. So we have the usual old favourites such as MGM stuff that's somehow avoided copyright renewal (Mr. Imperium, Till the Clouds Roll By, Royal Wedding), mundane oddities with glorious moments (Private Buckaroo, The Fabulous Dorseys, Second Chorus) and quite a lot of absolute crap from Monogram and PRC. The output of PRC is virtually unknown in the UK, which is probably just as well, even the basest of TV channels being unwilling to screen such terminal crumminess. Yet on this set we can see probably their finest hour: Benny Fields in Minstrel Man. Its minstrel-show setting may be flagrantly racist and Benny may be just marginally ahead of Jessel in the faux-Jolson stakes, but he's rare and treasurable. I loved it.

So this set is Highly Recommended to Third Banana readers. Why? Because amidst all that dross - bloody hours of it - there's some wonderful comedy.

For example:

Glorifying the American Girl - one of the most woeful cascades of misery ever inflicted on the American public. The history of this troubled early talkie is covered in some detail in Richard Barrios' A Song in the Dark. Like so many other movies in Millcreek's set, this gloomy backstage sob-story is lacking its Technicolor because it derives from a 1950s TV print made at the time when colour printing wasn't considered a feasible option. Nonetheless, after an hour and a half of Mary Eaton's suffering (or, from the audience's viewpoint, suffering Mary Eaton) We're treated to the full twelve minutes of Eddie Cantor's tailor sketch, "Belt in the Back", filmed, as so many TV sitcoms would be twenty-five years later, in a continuous take using three cameras. It finishes very abruptly (probably the film ran out!) and once or twice the picture slows down and then speeds up again, to most unsettling effect. This is Murphy's Law: The flaws are always during the best sequences (as in Plane Nuts on The Three Stooges Early Years). Readers: check our archive for details of the unsavoury 1949 lawsuit concerning the true authorship of this piece. Who'd have thought that twelve minutes of New York Jewish comedy could arouse such animosity? [And incidentally, who's the little guy playing the customer?]

People Are Funny - and sometimes movies are funny, but not this one, a really, really, really awful Paramount B-picture in which Jack Haley is emasculated and conned out of his rightful property, the People Are Funny radio show. I quote from Millcreek's synopsis:

"His rival Frances Langford (Ozzie Nelson) has plans of his own."

Frances isn't actually portrayed by Ozzie, of course, but she might as well be; her opening "guest star" number is ripped out of the movie in one of the clumsiest cuts I've ever come across. But... joy of joys (no, cancel that; it isn't that thrilling) we get a glimpse of Joe De Rita with hair, as an unwilling victim of "amusing" audience participation. It's near the end; use the fast forward button... please!

Breakfast in Hollywood. My dad really liked this movie, based on genial Tom Brenaman's morning radio show, and his judgment's correct: it's competent and pleasant. We've commented before on the number of lesser-lights [and even Besser-lights] who've copied Bert Lahr and ripped off his mannerisms: Brown, Skelton, Berle, even Snagglepuss. But there's one we forgot. In this little movie Spike Jones and his City Slickers give us their version of the "Glow Worm Idyll", featuring saxist Ernest "Red" Ingle. Loud, bellowing, cross-eyed, baggy-panted, he's very funny...but he's not original. He's the Bastard Prince of the Forest. The Spike Jones record of Chloe has long been acknowledged as a classic (and there's a film version if you can find it, in Bring On the Girls) but nothing will ever convince me that Ingle is anything more than a sub-Lahr in the same way that Jessel and Benny Fields are sub-Jolies. Speaking of which:

Stage Door Canteen: a grim, bleak, out-of-focus print but this most all-star of all all-star films has some rare New York talent between the ephemeral wartime romances: Ed Wynn, apparently in good shape despite the depression he often had to endure [readers: we really love Ed. Is that too obvious?]; sub-Jolie George Jessel, on the phone to his mother ("Hello? Mom? Georgie - your son - from the money every week..."); twitchy-jawed vent Edgar Bergen with Charlie McCarthy; and Franklin Pangborn's so-gay reaction to Johnny Weissmuller's rippling torso: "Oh my, what a chest!" Merle Oberon's brisk "warm smile" for the boys going overseas (it's at 1:21:19) is the most insincere, patronising thing I've ever clapped eyes on. She reveals herself as a goddess who's empty inside - a bit like Vivien Leigh.

Two of the most mediocre pictures in this set are temporarily ignited by the supporting roles played by one-trick-pony Cliff Nazarro, reprising his deadpan, indecipherable double-talk from You'll Never Get Rich; in Trocadero we're treated to a section of his night-club act. Funny? Absolutely. Enduring? Not really. Readers should catch the last ten minutes of Carry On Regardless for Cliff's English equivalent, Stanley Unwin. Why didn't anybody come up with an International Gobbledegook Championship? Nazarro of the US versus Unwin of the UK?

There are also a large number of African-American performers on display as well, where the richness of talent is barely hampered by the shoddy production values of these movies, necessarily (and quite unfairly) having to be made outside mainstream Hollywood. Duke Ellington! Lena Horne! Dusty Fletcher! Cab Calloway! And who's the coolest cat ever in the history of the entire universe?

Louis Jordan!

Uh oh, I forgot something. Let me think for a moment. Ah yes...

The Rocky Horror Picture Show of 1941!!!

Actually that's not the title, but it would be about right. It is in fact All American Co-Ed [the pun may be lost on British readers]. Johnny Downs and Frances Langford are the stars of this 48-minute Roach "streamliner". Frances isn't played by Ozzie Nelson here either, but it would be quite appropriate as nearly everyone else in the movie seems to be indulging themselves in some sort of cross-dressing frenzy. Right from the start, when the "chorus girls' legs" on the opening credit sequence are revealed to be male, boys dress as girls for plot purposes (and probably also for non-plot purposes; who knows what went on here?) and Frances Langford strides around for much of the time in what I can only describe as Tyrolean dungarees. You probably have some idea already what the musical numbers are like. And amidst all this jaw-dropping gender-distortion, sixth-billed, is Harry Langdon at the top of his form. Bespectacled and relaxed, far from the wreck described by Capra, he's adept at dialogue and fully in control of all his familiar gestures, for example s-l-o-w-l-y reacting to an insult by letting his smile drop in sections. Elsewhere, confronted by a Venus Fly Trap and informed of its carnivorous nature, he feeds it his ham sandwich. The Harry Langdon Story was no tragedy, as we'll discuss later. It's genuinely heartening to see him in such good shape. Personally, I think All American Co-Ed is a great little movie for all sorts of reasons, but as Ollie Hardy once said, we won't go into that.

This, then, is the Millcreek Classic Musicals set. Space forbids further detailed examination, so I'll just say find it, buy it, cherish it - and more importantly, comment on it. Let's hear from you. Amos 'n' Andy in Check and Double Check? Wheeler and Woolsey (and ohhhh God, Everett Marshall; where did they find this dope?) in Dixiana? George Givot in Fiesta? Jimmy Durante in Palooka??? The floor is yours, readers. Ha-cha-chaaa!!!

Bert, Bob, etc..

Hal Horn of The Horn Section has posted a review of Wheeler and Woolsey's 1933 anything-goes anti-war epic Diplomaniacs as a part of his series on films that should be on DVD but aren't. At the moment, Bert and Bob are "officially" represented on DVD by public domain prints of Dixiana, Half Shot at Sunrise, and Hook Line and Sinker (all 1930). I have to agree with Hal that Diplomaniacs deserves a DVD release (while disagreeing with him re: Bert's singing abilities) and, as it was one of a handful of W&W pictures released on VHS by Turner Home Entertainment in the early 90s, I have to imagine that it's on some executive's short list should some minor W&W DVD box set ever come about. Unfortunately, the W&W features previously chosen for VHS release give me no faith whatsoever in the Turner corporation's ability to select a decent line-up of Bert and Bob's comedies. Woe for the uninitiated classic comedy fan who is led to believe that the flavorless kiddie flick Kentucky Kernels is in any way representative of Wheeler and Woolsey's best work. Even Diplomaniacs, as fun as it is, is less a showcase for Bert and Bob's talents than a large scale exercise in the kind of outlandish "nut" humor that also gave the world Million Dollar Legs and International Hotel. Perhaps one of these days The Powers That Be will realize what they're sitting on and release a box set including, at least, Cockeyed Cavaliers, Hips Hips Hooray!, The Cuckoos, and So This Is Africa. A man can dream, can't he?

And, while we're on the subject, here's an interesting article by David Boxwell on the gender/sex subtext of Wheeler and Woolsey's pre-Code output. There's enough debate fuel in this article for a series of good-natured fistfights, although some of the conclusions remind me a little too much of the ultimately misguided Another Fine Dress: Role Play in the Films of Laurel and Hardy.

Will wundas nevva sizz?

More evidence that classic comedians are the coming pop-culture trend*. NYCopyGuy has brought to my attention this extremely nifty Wheeler and Woolsey music video on YouTube. El Kaye has culled appropriate clips from what appear to be every last one of Bert and Bob's movies and has beautifully set them to Colin Hay's "Circles Erratica". The results are a lot of fun and even rather moving.



El Kaye has also produced a similarly sweet tribute to Bert Wheeler and Dot Lee set to Paul McCartney's "I Will". Check it out!

*The other day a friend of mine pointed out a poster for a local garage band that utilizes a big portrait of Bert Lahr pulling his "gnong gnong gnong" face. It's a coming trend, I tell you!!

Knights of Knavery

I found these scans on eBay last week while window shopping. They're from the Columbia and RKO promotional books for the years 1932-33 and 1937-38 respectively and are meant to pique exhibitors' interest in the Wheeler and Woolsey features for those years. Talk about your studies in contrasts. Columbia president Harry Cohn lured Bert and Bob away from RKO in 1932 for a one-picture deal that resulted in the team's most outrageous picture, So This is Africa!. STIA! was clearly just a glint in Norman Krasna's eye when this bee-yootiful advance annoucement was published so the two-page spread simply promotes the requisite elements for any W&W picture: Bert, Bob, Bob's cigar, and tiny women crawling all over them.

click on thumbnail for full-sized image

The copy appropriately praises the team to the skies:

The "Maniacs of Mirth" make their debut on the Columbia program. Their reputation is world-wide and they need no introduction here. Their antics in "Rio Rita" placed them at once in the first rank as comedians. Columbia's plans for these two "Knights of Knavery" will further establish them firmly as the screen's stellar comedians! A recent poll of the public taste in pictures showed that the great majority, young and old, rich or poor, male or female, preferred comedy! Give your audience what they want -- by the Kings of Comedy!

Columbia will spare nothing to make this picture the funniest that Wheeler and Woolsey have ever made! It's a corking story filled with action, pretty girls, new gags and antics that will leave your audience gasping for breath between the laughs!

Columbia may have short-changed the team financially will their ill-conceived (for Bert and Bob, anyway) work-for-profit scheme, but they certainly lived up to their promise to deliver a top-notch W&W vehicle. As far as I'm concerned, STIA! was the best picture W&W had made up to that point, thanks primarily to Krasna's no-holds-barred screenplay. And if what remains after the Hays Office got finished cutting it into coleslaw is any indication, the original cut was probably the team's funniest feature, period. I rather doubt Columbia intended to screw over the team for a one-shot, and highly profitable, picture. The studio's publicity and the feature itself seem ample proof that Columbia was extremely happy to have Bert and Bob on their roster. The story of Bert and Bob's return to RKO has been told in such a way that suggests that the deciding factor for their departure was Columbia's withholding of the team's percentage of the profits.. their only pay. As STIA! was one of Columbia's biggest moneymakers of 1933, this would have been the very definition of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs and I personally don't believe it. I find it much more likely that Bert and Bob, impatient and wary of the "revolutionary" work-for-profit scheme, accepted RKO's more conventional counter-offer before the profits on STIA! had begun to materialize. When W&W left, Columbia (Cohn) spitefully withheld the money.

Anyway, contrast that snazzy two-page W&W announcement with this one from RKO's 1937-38 promotional book. I suggested in an earlier post that, after 1936, RKO didn't care about the team that had saved the studio's bacon during the Depression. I now present Exhibit A.

Christ on a pogo stick! I rather like the streamlined, Mike and Ike-shaped Bob, but what the hell has happened to poor Bert?? What did he ever do to the RKO publicity department that would compel them to portray him as maniacal, gap-toothed ghoul?? The copy:

The Bellylaff boys in one hoky-poky howler.

'Nuff said.

The Rise and Fall of Wheeler and Woolsey

You can actually chart the rise and fall of Wheeler and Woolsey, RKO's one-time golden boys, by looking at the evolution of their posters and newspaper ads. If RKO's publicity materials are any indication, even if Bob Woolsey not died in 1937, the team would have likely found themselves on the way out anyway. The RKO art department's lack of enthusiasm for the team post-1936 is palpable. Click on the thumbnails for the full-sized images.

Rio Rita (1929): Instead of Wheeler and Woolsey, we get Wheeler and 500 Others, a daring if rather unwieldy size for a comedy team. Bob Woolsey, however, stood out from the crowd and comedy history was made. Contrary to the poster, there is neither a "Mammoth Girl" nor mammoths in general in Rio Rita.. not even in Glorious Technicolor. Mammoth fans were sorely disappointed. The attractive deco poster lets you know that this is Ziegfeld, Daniels, and Boles' show all the way. Audiences felt differently. RKO listened and, aside from Dixiana (1930), W&W would forever more be headliners.

Cracked Nuts (1931): Wheeler and Woolsey having just established themselves as Radio Pictures' hottest properties, the studio decided to split them apart in order to get more bang for their buck. Cracked Nuts was an experiment in that direction by keeping the team apart until the movie was halfway over (blah). The Cuckoos (1930), based on Clark and McCullough's Broadway smash The Ramblers, was W&W's first solo hit and they were referred to as "the cuckoos" in Radio's press materials for years afterwards. A standard newspaper ad from the days when audiences would sit still for shorts about golfing.

Too Many Cooks (1931): Bert Wheeler's first solo feature. This unimaginative poster uses garish color to cover for the fact that nothing actually happens in the movie. NOTHING! For over an hour, Wheeler and Lee wander around a building site. No songs. No dancing. A comedy so dull and unfunny that ROSCOE ATES is brought in as comic relief. Woolsey's solo feature, Everything's Rosie (1931), is a comic masterpiece by comparison and the art for the herald (which I can't find at the moment) is very imaginative, with the double Os in Woolsey's name doubling as his glasses. Ironically, despite the mind-numbing lameness of Too Many Cooks, Radio Pictures was all set to feature Wheeler on his own again while poor Woolsey was apparently going to be dumped. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and W&W were reunited.

Caught Plastered (1931): Wheeler and Woolsey back together again. One of the two W&W pictures I haven't seen, but what a poster!! Beautiful layout, and even a little creepy.. in a good way, I mean.

Hold 'Em Jail (1932): The other W&W picture I haven't seen. Another beautiful poster, painted in that 30s pulp magazine style I love so much.

So This Is Africa! (1933): W&W were lured away from RKO to Columbia by studio president Harry Cohn who offered the team a percentage of profits rather than an up-front salary. Their only feature away from Radio was remarkably ribald (for the time) and loaded with sexual innuendoes. The Hays Office cut it to ribbons, but it's still extremely funny. The scene in which Woolsey attempts to call the Otis Elevator Company to lodge a complaint from inside a plummeting elevator is one of their best. This newspaper ad has been very clumsily trimmed, but the extremely nice halftone art indicates that Columbia was willing to give the team the best possible treatment, short of actually paying them. W&W never saw a penny for their work at Columbia.

Cockeyed Cavaliers (1934): It's a toss-up as to whether Hips Hips Hooray! (1934) or Cockeyed Cavaliers is Wheeler and Woolsey's best film. My vote goes to the former, but both are excellent. I haven't yet seen a poster for Cockeyed Cavaliers, but I assume it uses a variation on the art used on the film's sheet music and in the lower right-hand corner of this two-color movie herald. Very creative use of the dual Ws

Kentucky Kernels (1934): At the mercy of their writers, W&W start to lose their edge in this film. A full 180 from their adult fare, Kentucky Kernels is mushy kid stuff and even co-stars Spanky McFarland, on loan from Hal Roach. The whole boring mess is saved by some excellent Kalmar and Ruby songs. Audiences in 1934 made it the highest grossing W&W feature ever and the studio certainly didn't skimp on the poster art. Of what I've seen, this is my favorite W&W poster.. Vibrant and well-chosen colors, a touch of caricature to the portraits of Bert and Bob, excellent layout and typography, and that oh-so cool red outline.

The Nitwits (1935): One of my favorite Wheeler and Woolsey pictures, despite the absence of Dorothy Lee, the half-assed mystery plot and the lame climax with Willie Best. Bert and Bob turn in some of their best ever performances in some inspired gag sequences. Again, the songs are very good. This lobby card likely reproduces some of the poster art. The portrayal of Bert, Bob, and Betty Grable is a touch too dramatic for this extremely undramatic mystery-comedy. In fact, the only thing that would really tip you off to the fact that The Nitwits is a comedy is the (inappropriate) title. Nice use of a star as a graphic divider between W&W's names, though.

Mummy's Boys (1936): Everyone but Nick and myself seems to hate Mummy's Boys. It's far from their best, but it's not the team's worst. That honor, IMO, must go to Silly Billies (1935) or High Flyers (1937), with The Rainmakers (1936) coming in a close third. The story sucks and so do a lot of the gags, but, in regards to cinematography and sets, it's easily one of the best looking W&W movies. Mummy's Boys' title card, picturing Bert and Bob as mummies flanking the title, is the probably the best for any W&W picture. The poster is nice but more than a little perfunctory and, as such, is an indication that someone is losing interest in the team.

On Again-Off Again (1937): The second to last Wheeler and Woolsey picture and the poster art is now completely perfunctory (and so is the film itself, despite a few nice moments). The poster gives absolutely no real indication as to what the film is about and the layout is just plain sloppy. A cheap no-brainer on the part of the RKO's art department.

High Flyers (1937): Wheeler and Woolsey are in it. What the hell else do you need to know? I haven't seen a poster for High Flyers, W&W's last, and most depressing, movie. The caricatures in this tiny newspaper ad are rather good, but look like stock graphics. Given the downward trend in the poster art for W&W films, I'm banking on High Flyer's poster resembling the one for On Again-Off Again.