PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

High Flyers 1937

High Flyers 1937 Screenplay by Benny Rubin, Bert Granet and Byron Morgan, direction by Edward Cline. The last film the boys would make together.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey run a carnival ride that lets the rider try to fly an early plane simulator. An idiot smuggler hires them to fly a plane for him and not having any real experience flying a plane they take on the job because of the cash. They are told they are flying to pick up some news photos of a hot story. It reality the smuggler has stolen a police plane and the photos are a load of cocaine and some stolen diamonds.

The pair manage to fly the plane after a fashion but there's trouble in the cockpit once they find the cocaine and spill it everywhere. The plane crashes in a rich guys garden and there's plenty of mayhem once they get settled in that guy;s house. Eventually the crooks are caught and things settle down.

It was pretty funny and that makes it sadder that there aren't too be anymore. Bert would make a couple of features, one in 1939 and another in 1942, and that would be it but for a couple of short films in the early 1950s.

On Again - Off Again 1937

On Again - Off Again 1937 Screenplay by Nat Perrin and Benny Rubin, direction by Edward Cline. Robert Woolsey was suffering from kidney pain during the shooting of the film and was in constant pain. He still manages to put in a good performance.

Robert Woolsey and Bert Wheeler are nincompoops who own a drug company together. They are feuding over some trivial bit and constantly threatening to break up the partnership. Their lawyer sets up a contest and Woolsey is the winner, he gets to be in charge of the company, poor Wheeler, he gets to be Woolsey's valet for a year.

There's plenty of big sets and a couple of big production numbers. There are the usual lot of jokes and a good bit of hitting and yelling. Some of it made me laugh but I was sad that I'm almost to the end of their run together.

Mummy's Boys 1936

Mummy's Boys 1936 Story by Jack Townley and Lew Lipton, screenplay by Jack Townley, Philip G Epstein and Charles E Roberts, directed by Fred Guiol with an assist from James Anderson.

A stupid rich guy believes that there's a curse on the stolen treasures from an Egyptian tomb. He wants to return the treasures so he hires Robert Woolsey and Bert Wheeler to help him. They are rather imbecilic ditch diggers with plenty of the usual quirks. Bert forgets things and needs a nap to revive himself, Robert is just a big lying braggart.  Willie Best joins the group on the expedition. I always like seeing Willie in a picture.

Strange things happen on the trip but they manage to get to the tomb. Despite the disappearance of their boss, the boy follow his instructions to dig into the tomb and put the treasures back. They manage to get caught by the evil guy and sealed in the tomb. There's plenty of running about and yelling. It's about average for the guys, a few laughs are always good.

Silly Billies 1936

Silly Billies 1936 Story by Thomas Lennon and Fred Guiol, screenplay by Al Boasberg and Jack Townley, directed by Fred Guiol. A period peace with the fellows in the 1840s.

Robert Woolsey and Bert Wheeler are dentists, they set up in a town the day before all the citizens leave for the California gold rush in a wagon train. The guys overhear the local scumbag plot to wipe out the wagon train with the help of a neighboring tribe. The local scumbag is the wagon train's scout. He plans to leave the wagon train and let the tribe attack, once the new settlers are wiped out, they split the loot with the tribe.

Wheeler and Woolsey ride out to tell the wagon train but they get framed for the plot by an unfortunate slip of Woolsey's tongue. There's plenty of running about and cowboy movie stuff going on but they do save the citizens. There are jokes, some are fairly good, some not. Sadly the movie is often marred by the tired old racial stereotypes depicting Native Americans. It's the 22nd film the guys made together in 8 years, I'm including the shorts they made together, and they still have 3 more to go before Woolsey passes away in 1938.

The Rainmakers 1935

The Rainmakers 1935 Story by Albert Traynor and Fred Guiol, screenplay by Grant Garrett and Leslie Goodwins, directed by Fred Guiol.

Robert Woolsey is a rainmaker and Bert Wheeler is a farmer in the Midwest. Before Robert can help the locals by unleashing his rainmaking device a sand storm blows in. The farmers are mad and blame him. He escapes and takes refuge in Bert's house. The house blows away, the boys were safe in the root cellar, so Bert joins Robert in a trip to California for his next job.

The manager of the bank asked Robert to come see if he can make it rain, the fields are parched and the farmers could loose their crops and their farms if the dry spell won't break. The big rich farmer in the area is using the poor farmer's financial state to ram rod them into supporting a water system to pull water from a lake outside of town. He's making money either way, first by gouging the local farmer's by inflating the cost of the water system, and he stands to get some of their land real cheap if they can't come up with the money to buy into the project.

The bank manager has extended the bank's assets trying to help the farmers by not foreclosing on their loans. His daughter is played by Dorothy Lee and she's Bert's romantic interest here. Bert and Robert break a bunch of stuff before they blow up two locomotives in the big finale. It's fairly entertaining but the locomotives sequence goes on a bit too long. Still, I got a few good laughs out of it anyway. Only 4 more features to go.

 

 

The Nitwits 1935

The Nitwits 1935 Story by Stuart Palmer, screenplay by Fred Guiol and Al Boasberg, direction by George Stevens.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey work in a cigar stand in a building where a radio station operates. Bert really wants to write songs and Robert is a bit of an inventor. They get mixed up in a murder case with the usual chaotic results. Fred Keating, Betty Grable and Willie Best are in the cast. 

Not quite as much fun as some of their films and the black characters are quite stereotyped. Just barely average.

Kentucky Kernels 1934

Kentucky Kernels 1934 Screenplay by Lee Marcus and HN Swanson, directed by George Stevens with an assist from Jean Yarbrough.

Robert Woolsey is the Great Elmer and Bert Wheeler is Willie, they're a couple of out of work magicians. They help a guy adopt a kid, Spanky McFarland plays Spanky, you might know him from the Little Rascals. The guy elopes and The Great Elmer and company get stuck with Spanky. Turns out he's a genial little fellow who likes breaking windows.

Mary Carisle, Noah Beery, Margaret Dumont and Willie Best appear. I can't think of a time when Willie Best appearing in a film didn't cheer me up. Sadly not all of his roles are up to his talent, here he's got a good size part and plenty of stuff to do. Bob Hope called Willie the "best actor I know" while working with him on The Ghost Breakers.

Spanky inherits some money and the boys go along to Kentucky where they get into a family feud with the Wakefields. There's plenty of running about and yelling with a bit of romance and a lot of gun shooting near the end. It all turns out well for the boys in the end. Another fun film.

Cockeyed Cavaliers 1934

Cockeyed Cavaliers 1934 Screenplay by Edward Kaufman, Grant Garrett, Ralph Spence and Ben Holmes, directed by Mark Sandrich.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey live in medieval England. Bert's a bit of kleptomaniac and even though Robert tries to keep him out of trouble, he gets caught and they both wind up in the stocks. A young man helps them escape and they run off, chased by the sheriff. Dorothy Lee plays the young man, it turns out she's been hiding from the local Duke who wants to marry her. She's not wanting anything to do with that. Bert falls for her and figures a way to get her out of her predicament. It's pretty much the usual fare, some gags, some running about and a couple of songs. Fun.

Hips, Hips, Hooray 1934

Hips, Hips, Hooray 1934 Screenplay by Bert Kalmar, Edward Kaufman and Harry Ruby, directed by Mark Sandrich.

Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey are cosmetic salesman hawking their wares on the street. They get involved with a cosmetic company who have a musical radio show with plenty of pretty dancers.

The boys get up a fund raiser for this poor girl, she has no clothes. That's Doris McMahon in her pre-code costume. You don't see her this closeup in the movie, she appears way in the background. Probably for the best, no use inflaming the youth of the day with a flash of bare hip.

Bert and Robert misplace some company securities and their manager steals them. Now the boys are in trouble with the law and they must use all their limited brain power to get themselves out of this pickle. They decide to get into a car race. That's a good place to keep a low profile.

Eventually things get sorted out with gags and musical numbers. Thelma Todd and Dorothy Lee provide some romance, there's plenty of action once the car racing starts, and there's a happy ending for the guys. Still enjoying the guy's films and there still are several to go.

Diplomaniacs 1933

Diplomaniacs 1933 Story by Joseph L Mankiewicz, screenplay by Joseph L Mankiewicz and Henry Meyers, directed by William A Seiter. It's executive producer was Merian C Cooper and the associate producer was Sam Jaffe.

Like most of the Wheeler and Woolsey films it's available on DVD from the Warner Brothers Archives. There's a 4 disc set with 9 films, a 3 disc set with 6 films, and 8 single discs with a film on each. This is the 12th of the 22 feature pictures that W&W made together. They made a few shorts together and each made a few solo films.

Robert Wheeler and Bert Woolsey are barbers on a Native American reservation where there's little business. The oil rich tribe gives the guys a million dollars each and sends them to a peace conference in Europe. It makes little sense but there you go. It's about as absurd as their last picture So This Is Africa.

They sail to Europe and cause chaos aboard ship and later at the conference. Some rival governments and a dirty arms dealer want to see the peace conference fail so they try gumming up the works. Thankfully typical dirty tricks don't work so well on our boys. Marjorie White and Phyllis Barry are the romantic interests, they fall hard for the boys. I know, absurd. Edgar Kennedy is the chairman of the conference. Hugh Herbert is Chow-Chow, he's credited as Chinaman in the films credits.

The movie is of the times and filled with stereotypes of all sorts. While I'm not happy to see the stereotypes, I can put them in the context of their time. It's politically incorrect for the modern day but not so much in 1933. Near the end of the film a bomb is tossed into the conference and the explosion gives everyone in the room blackface, then there's a minstrel show style song and dance number called No More War. You may say "Wow" but it turns out to be a good song with the right message. I'm not always a big fan of the musical numbers but this film has some of their best work.

I read on the IMDb that the film's been preserved by the Library of Congress. That's a good thing, we need these sorts of films to remind ourselves of what we were like in the past. I'm also glad they put it on disc so we can still enjoy one of Wheeler and Woolsey's better films.