Crime Rave (1939) User Reviews

Wait For The Wagon

[boblipton · 6/10 · 17 October 2019]

Leon is having another slow day at his haberdashery shop when two men and a woman enter. They've just robbed a bank and are looking for a hide-out. They pretend to want to buy the shop, so Leon takes them home to wife Vivian Tobin. Meanwhile, a cousin shows up unannounced. As Leon gradually figures things out, the situation goows more dire. It's not helped by the fact that his brother-in-law, cop Bud Jamison is rehearsing three fellow officers in barbershop quartet. They're busy.

It's a pretty good episode in Leon's long-running series of comedy shorts for RKO. A lot of faces pop up n them and in this one in particular that you don't associate with short subjects: Frank Faylen, veteran of more than 190 features and TV's DOBIE GILLIS is here as one of the robbers.

There is something very peculiar about the layout of Leon's house. The upstairs corridors are about 12 feet wide!

The only thing to rave about is the parrot.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 12 May 2021]

This is disappointing entry in the series of Leon Errol shorts released by RKO in the 1930's and 40's. As the owner of the haberdashery, he ends up hiding a pair of bank robbers (one male, one female) in his house while trying to figure out how to turn them over to the police. A series of interfering relatives show up, immediately causing trouble, which creates a dangerous situation. Somehow, the police are all so present, creating a barbershop quartet (sounding like the singing statues from the haunted mansion), and a parrot creates a bit of humor as he confuses Errol. There's absolutely no humor in anything that happens here, making it probably my least favorite of the Errol shorts.