Go West

Go West
December 6, 1940
MGM
Comedy, Western, Musical
VHS
C+

Edward Buzzell directed, and Irving Brecher wrote, At the Circus as well, so it's not surprising that this is equally good, and equally bad.  You could almost skip the first half, or at least fast-forward from Harpo and Chico swindling Groucho up to the safe-cracking scene.  Then stay tuned through the surprisingly charming "Riding the Range" song with the male romantic lead, Groucho, and Chico.  But avoid the "red Indian" scene, which is not only racist but tedious.  (Harpo's "loom" harp might be worth slowing down for.)  Get up to the big chase scene, between a train and a buggy, and you're good till the end.  (Buster Keaton again gave uncredited support, and this climax is clearly his idea rather than Brecher's.)  The Marxes' other C+s so far-- The Cocoanuts, A Day at the Races, and At the Circus-- don't divide up so neatly.  (For instance, there are scenes in Cocoanuts that are kind of boring and then have a good moment or two.)  The best unintentionally funny moments are the "I hate you more" romantic scene (some of which seems to be delivered by a horse) and Lulubelle's deep singing voice.  Set in 1870, the film has tons of anachronisms, of varying degrees of amusement, the sneakiest being Groucho's name, S. Quentin Quale.  ("San Quentin quail" meant jailbait.)  However, no one in the audience will be as amused as the two villains, who spend a great deal of time chortling over their schemes, without even having good villain laughs.

One of the villains, Walter Woolf King, was Lassparri in A Night at the Opera.  Heroine Diana Lewis was the debutante in Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, which featured George Lessey.  Lew Harvey would shortly be in Citizen Kane.  James Dime would go on to Road to Morocco, Harry Wilson to Some Like It Hot, and Iris Adrian to Freaky Friday.

Andy Hardy Meets Debutante

Andy Hardy Meets Debutante
July 5, 1940
MGM
Comedy
VHS
C+

This is the ninth out of sixteen Andy Hardy movies, although the only one I own.  I've seen a couple others, and while I'm definitely not a fan, it was worth picking up the tape for less than $1.  And, yes, that's the title, not "a debutante" or "the debutante," just "debutante," as if it's a newspaper heading.  In a plot that somewhat resembles the 1942 introduction of Veronica in the Archie comics, small-town typical 17-year-old boy Andy claims he knows his crush, New York debutante Daphne Fowler, but of course he doesn't.  Never mind that he already has a girlfriend, or that loyal friend Betsy has a crush on him.

Andy's girl-craziness is particularly appropriate for Mickey Rooney, who would go on to eight marriages.  Several of the lines are extra amusing in retrospect:  "I'll live and die a bachelor," "Love again, Andy?", "How one's women do mount up," and "That's not glamour, that's polygamy!"  Andy isn't a very sympathetic character, not so much because of how he chases girls (Archie has managed to be sympathetic for over 70 years), as the way he treats people in general, until he starts to learn his lessons, including civics lessons.  I was also annoyed with him teaching a little boy to be macho and slangy, for unfunny comic relief.  Luckily, there's Judy as Betsy.  She is almost as likable as she was as Dorothy the previous year, and she manages to redeem "Alone," the over-used love song of A Night at the Opera.  However, it and the song that wins over Andy, "I'm Nobody's Baby," are actually depressing if you pay attention to the lyrics.

Ethelreda Leopold was in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man and The Wizard of Oz.  Addison Richards, who was the judge in My Little Chickadee, plays George Benedict here.  Buddy Messinger is an elevator boy again.  George Lessey, who plays Underwood, the rival lawyer, would soon be the Railroad President in Go West, while Diana Lewis (Daphne) would be Eve Wilson in that movie.  (She was Miss Dunk in It's a Gift.)  Thomas Pogue would go on to Citizen Kane.

It's a Gift

It's a Gift
November 30, 1934
Paramount
Comedy
DVD
C

Despite McLeod as director, this is even more slow-moving, and less funny, than the other two Fields movies I have from '34.  It comes close to being amusing in the "picnic on private property" scene, but nothing builds.  Baby LeRoy is given less to work with than in Old Fashioned Way, and even a very talented toddler can't do much with molasses in two movies.  Kathleen Howard, who was in OLW, plays Fields's nagging wife and gets far too much screen time.  And it feels unbalanced that so much of the film is set before they actually get to the "orange ranch" in California, and then the day is saved with much less set-up than when Fields's invention sells in You're Telling Me!  It's hard to believe that this is considered one of Fields's best.

Fields regulars include Eddie Baker, Del Henderson, and Josephine Whittell.  Some of the cast would go on to appear in Marx Brothers movies:  Jerry Mandy in A Night at the Opera, Edith Kingdon in A Day at the Races, and Diana Lewis in Go West.