Boy loves girl, but she's on the other side in a hillbilly feud.Boy loves girl, but she's on the other side in a hillbilly feud.Boy loves girl, but she's on the other side in a hillbilly feud.
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Ay tank Ay don't tank El Brendel is very fonny
El Brendel was a Swedish dialect comic who was fairly popular during his lifetime but who is mostly forgotten today. Unlike some other forgotten comedians who produced shorts for Columbia in the 1930s and '40s (Charley Chase, Harry Langdon, and Andy Clyde come to mind), it's far easier for me to see (based on the evidence of this short subject, anyway) why he's forgotten than why he was popular in the first place. His indifferent dialect is the only tool he relies on for laughs, and it doesn't work. Apart from that, his delivery is wooden and doesn't seem bothered to milk a single situation for comic potential.
The short itself seems to want to rely pretty heavily on the joke of "country people are stupid, dirty, and feud a lot." Quite apart from the fact that that's potentially a little insulting to country people, there's only so far the joke goes. Any other gags are pretty routine and humdrum. The "action" sequence at the end, with El's character and his sweetheart running around inside a cow costume, is so awkwardly filmed, with laughably bad cutaway shots and back projection, that it's ridiculous.
It's probably supposed to be funny that there's a "Swede" out in the country and involved in the feud, but it just comes off as something that makes no sense. This was Brendel's first Columbia short. He would go on to keep making them well into the forties. Maybe he's better in other settings, but judging from "Ay Tank Ay Go" I can't understand why a second was commissioned. The other Columbia shorts I have seen from the same era have all been funnier, more competent, and more creative.
The short itself seems to want to rely pretty heavily on the joke of "country people are stupid, dirty, and feud a lot." Quite apart from the fact that that's potentially a little insulting to country people, there's only so far the joke goes. Any other gags are pretty routine and humdrum. The "action" sequence at the end, with El's character and his sweetheart running around inside a cow costume, is so awkwardly filmed, with laughably bad cutaway shots and back projection, that it's ridiculous.
It's probably supposed to be funny that there's a "Swede" out in the country and involved in the feud, but it just comes off as something that makes no sense. This was Brendel's first Columbia short. He would go on to keep making them well into the forties. Maybe he's better in other settings, but judging from "Ay Tank Ay Go" I can't understand why a second was commissioned. The other Columbia shorts I have seen from the same era have all been funnier, more competent, and more creative.
helpful•00
- hte-trasme
- Sep 17, 2009
Details
- Runtime19 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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