The Film Daily (1931)

"Next Door Neighbors" Pathe . Time, 22 mins. First-Class Comedy This is the best short comedy that has come from the Pathe factory in months. Franklin Pangborn, Arthur Houseman and Edgar Kennedy are featured. One is the lyric composer trying to finish a song with many interruptions from his wife in her household duties. His neighbor is a broker recovering from the night before and nursing an awful head. The composer uses the neighbor's phone, and one disturbance is added to another, both families getting madder and madder and also meaner in their revenge on the household furniture. But the best part of the gagging comes from Franklin Pangborn, the innocent bystander. As the landlord of both houses he is building a fence on the pathway between, and the scrapping families keep treading on it and busting it as they travel back and forth to carry on their neighborly feud. It is done with a fine comedy sense, and keeps building to a wow climax. Rates first-class. "Service Stripes" with Joe Penner, Joan Carter Waddell Vitaphone 1124 Time, 11 mins. Amusing CorMdy Skit Burlesque bits, doughboy comedy and a sprinkling of dance are included in the latest Joe Penner skit, which is generally satisfactory entertainment. Penner again features his vocal impediment specialty with fairly good results. There are some flirting bits with a pip, Joan Carter Waddell, who later does an attractive dance at the soldiers' show. "Straight and Narrow" Tiffany Time, 8 mins. Good Playlet Ed Robbins and Allen Jenkins are featured in this dramatic sketch dealing with an "Ex-Convict's Club." A member of the organization is shown telling the assemblage how a certain "perfect crime" was committed and the manner in which the criminal was found out. Carries suspense very nicely. Mr. and Mrs. Jack Norworth in "The Naggers Go Rooting" Vitaphone 1154 Time, 8 mins. Good Comedy The Norworths continue their pace as deft comedians in this sketch with a football game background. Most of the action is devoted to the familiar hokum of the husband trying to explain the game to his uninitiated wife, who asks silly questions and then comes back with sillier remarks. The arrival of the couple at the stadium, where they find themselves in a sea of autos, and their departure after the game, when a panhandler upsets their car because Jack doesn't come across, also are good for some laughs. "Looney Tunes ("Ain't Nature Grand") Vitaphone 4626 Time, 6 mins. Pip Song Cartoon This number, the seventh in the series of these song cartoons, is one of the swellest shorts of the kind to come along. It depicts various antics out in the woods among the birds, bees, flowers, trees, little fish, etc., and contains a load of humorous ingenuity. A little subject full of big laughs. "Siam to Korea" FitzPatrick Time, 8 mins. Average Travelogue Average travelogue entertainment is furnished by this short, which deals with famous sightseeing objectives and the customs of the inhabitants of Siam and Korea. The usual descriptive talk accompanies the picture. "01' King Cotton" with George Dewey Washington Paramount Time, 10 mins. Okay Song Sketch George Dewey Washington, the colored vocalist who has appeared on the stage with excellent success, does some of his good singing in this skit with a southern atmosphere. Opening with the title song, down on the plantation, he later is seen up north telling about his former days in the cotton fields. This is followed by another song, with a flashback to the first setting. Vocal numbers are fine and the idea as a whole is agreeably handled. "The King of Bugs" pathe Time, 9 mins. Snappy Cartoon Good atmospheric stuff is injected into this Aesop Fable, with the citizens of Bugville in the days of the knights in arms engaging in a tournament of arms. The spider wins the main running event from the hero Bug, and winds up by socking the King and stealing his lovely daughter!. But the hero comes to the escue and vanquishes the spider in a duel. Nicely handled, with comedy sound effects. "Nine Nights in a Barroom" Tiffany Time, 21 mins. Chimp Laugh Riot This is the best of the Chimp Comedies thus far, and it's a wow. These chimps are getting better and better as the director develops the technique with his simian actors. The scenes take place principally in an oldfashioned barroom, with the Old Souse out to wreck the joint after the owner who also is his landlord has dispossessed his family. The gags are indescribably funny. It's one of those things that must be seen to be appreciated. The different voices used for the different monk characters make the film a sure-fire laugh hit. Especially the barkeeper, who talks with a typical stage comedy German accent. A laugh riot in any showman's theater. "Angles of Angling" Pathe Time, 8 mins. Good Sportlight A very entertaining Sportlight, showing some unusual angles in the angling sport in various sections of the country. Opens with fly angling in Colorado, with a girl making fancy flies while you wait. An unusual shot is angling for tuna fish with a kite at Catalina. The kite is sent up from the boat, keeping the bait skimming along the top of the water till the tuna is hooked. The finish shows a new sport of fishing from an aquaplane. The aquaplane flies over the ocean, the pilot sights the fish, and drops a floating buoy to mark the spot. Then they descend and fish from the plane. "The Laugh Back" Universal Time, 21 mins. College Comedy A Red Star comedy with the coliegiate atmosphere that is somewhat behind the times. Monte Collins is featured as the dumb comedian who gets on the football team although he doesn't know a thing about it. And of course, by a fluke play, he wins the game. But this time he wins it for the opposing team. The hole affair is an awful travesty on a football game, and will make the college clientele and those who know anything about football laugh the wrong way. ■^ Lynn Overman in "Horseshoes" Vitaphone 1120 Time, 8 mins. Fair Comedy Sketch In the role of a constantly soused newspaper reporter, who is nicknamed "Horseshoes" because he carries one of them around for luck, Lynn Overman puts over a fine performance in a fairly amusing sketch. Having been sent to cover a murder trial, he goes to a speakeasy instead, after arranging with a fellowreporter to tip him off by signal as soon as the verdict is brought in. Through a hitch he gets the wrong signal and the souse phones his paper a verdict of "acquittal" whereas the jury pronounced the prisoner "guilty." By fast work, the verdict is appealed and reversed, thereby giving the stewed reporter another lucky break. "Twixt Love and Duty" Vitaphone 4168 Time, 11 mins Western Burlesque Plenty laughable burlesque on the western melodrama of years ago, ably acted bv a cast including Esther Howard, Eddie Graham and Walter Percival. As the tent-drama hero, Percival knocks out a load of laughs. Miss Howard is the charming heroine and Graham plays the old-time menace with monstrous mustache. Ought to prove highly amusing to general audiences, though the kids are likely to mistake it as a straight performance instead of a travesty. "In Old Mazuma" Universal Time, 21 mins. Burlesque Miscues George Sidney and Charlie Murray ire featured in a burlesque of "In Old Arizona." The travesty follows the plot of the feature closely, but somehow misses a mile in getting >ver the kidding atmosphere. The fault is not alone with the actors, but with the director and story writer, who all missed out unanimously _ in catching the proper burlesque spirit n which this was supposed to be done. So it rates below average as a laugh-getter. "Strange As It Seems" Universal Time, 11 mins. Below Average The fifth in the series of unusual and novel clips in colors. It falls below the average of its predecessors. which all have been exceptionally ^ood. They didn't have the proper novelty shots to build this one up fo the peak of the others. Opens with a shot of a church in California built entirely from a Redwood tree. Then they show a midget hull, a cross between a buffalo and an ox. prville Stamm. the freak strong hoy is exhibited holding up a piano on his shoulders and knees while =omeone plavs it. A shot of ocean surf is thrown in here, a scenic that has no noveltv and certainly does no' belong in this series. An old Chin1:s seen putterine around his hand•nade dwelling. Finishes with a stun' man dropping from an airplane onto 1 havstack, which doesn't seem particularly dangerous or thrilling. Pathe Audio Review No. 51 Onens with some gorgeous shot-if the Canadian Rockies with th • •louds hanging low over the peak* Edgar Guest, the popular poet, i «een at work in his home, turnin-' out his daily syndicate verse. Guec* reads his poem after he knocks it off on the tvpewriter. Then comes mechanical tov sequence which i very cleverly handled. It is a littl nursery idea, with the doll heroin 'ost in the wilderness with the wild •inimals surrounding her. Winds u« with aerial views of New York skvcrapers, with the airplane stuntin and the cameraman strapped on tlv outside taking shots upside down an I while nose diving at a dizzv rate Liable to make some women di/7watching it. but great photographiust the same. The incidental music is class, as usual in the Audio.