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You Were Never Uglier (1944)
Hilarious pairing of Andy and Emmett Lynn
This remake of the elusive 1935 short GOBS OF TROUBLE starring Tom Kennedy and Monte Collins is very funny thanks to the team of Andy Clyde and former Viagraph comedian Emmett Lynn. Felix Adler is credited for the script of this short, though I believe someone else wrote the original.
Andy and Emmett are sailors who return home after being on the ocean for a long time. They become nervous to propose to their fiancées and they soon live to regret it, as they end up getting married and succumb to doing the household work. When a fire burns down their apartment, they are forced to relocate to the suburbs where they try to impress their wives by cleaning the house, with disastrous results.
Jules White, of course, shifts the physical violent slapstick into high gear, especially the sequences where Andy tries to put a bed together and Emmett dealing with an uncooperative dresser. The two actually appeared together the previous year in WOLF IN THIEF'S CLOTHING, a partial reworking of Clyde's own short LOVE COMES TO MOONEYVILLE and they would team up again later in GOLD IS WHERE YOU LOSE IT, featuring Mel Blanc in a rare acting role and HOOKED AND ROOKED, a remake of UGLIER.
Slappily Married (1946)
The only DeRita short worth watching
Before becoming better known as the third stooge for the team's final series of films. Joe DeRita was hired for a short-lived series of two- reelers at Columbia from 1946-48. SLAPPILY MARRIED is easily the best of the series, thanks to Ed Bernds's direction and the welcoming supporting cast of Christine McIntyre, Dorothy Granger, and Dick Wessel.
Joe plays a happily married man who finds out today is Friday the 13th. To avoid any mayhem, he decides to go back to bed, but his wife says it's just a superstition and tells him to start making breakfast, leading to a hilarious set piece as Joe gets a bowl of waffle batter plastered over his Shemp-style hair, dishes fall and crash everywhere, food flies in all directions and even gets sidelined by a breakaway chair. Later, at work, Joe makes the mistake of innocently getting involved with a female customer and gets pummeled by her jealous husband. Joe's wife notices this and walks out on him, which leads to him tracking her down in a women-only hotel.
The short is actually a remake of the 1943 Andy Clyde entry A MAID MADE MAD, which is decent, as well. One wonders how DeRita would do in two-reelers with Moe and Larry in later years.
Pardon My Nightshirt (1956)
This version blows the other two out of the water
Andy Clyde's final Columbia two-reeler is actually a remake of Charley Chase's THE NIGHTSHIRT BANDIT (1938) and Clyde's own GO CHASE YOURSELF (1948). I honestly think this version is better executed thanks to Felix Adler rewriting the script to keep it simple.
Clyde is a professor at an all-girls college who is hired to track down a thief prowling the campus as The Nightshirt Bandit. In the 1948 version, Clyde is actually the bandit himself, but doesn't know it since he sleepwalks while stealing stuff. In this version, the bandit is played by Joe Palma, who was the only supporting actor still active at Columbia's shorts department, but we do get to see Dudley Dickerson in the new footage as he was pretty much finished with the movie industry around this time. Still it's worth recommending.
Shot in the Escape (1943)
Billy Gilbert fans may like it, others may steer clear
Billy Gilbert, a very talented comic actor who appeared in numerous comedy shorts at every studio in Hollywood in the 1930s and '40s, was finally signed to his own series of comedy shorts for Columbia. Unfortunately, his output consisted of only 3 two-reelers in a little over a year. Though Gilbert had supporting roles in Columbia shorts before, people thought his solo shorts were mediocre.
His first short, SHOT IN THE ESCAPE, in which he is teamed with Cliff Nazarro, who made another Columbia short with Greek dialect comic George Givot, TWO SAPLINGS, which is currently unavailable for viewing, does pay off, but very little. What's worse is Gilbert speaks with a Greek accent for the entire short, maybe to make him more funnier, I imagine. Gilbert and Nazarro play friends who decide to spend a day at the movies when they try to help a woman cross a muddy street and end up getting soaked. When they go to the woman's apartment to dry off, her jealous husband (Charlie Hall) shows up and chases them away with a gun. It would have more funnier if this short was assigned to the Stooges since this material would have better suited for them.
Even though Gilbert's shorts were later revived on television by Screen Gems in 1959 (part of its Hilarious Hundred package), they still failed to make an impact since they disappeared from TV shortly after. Fans of Gilbert may like it, others might want to steer clear.
Meet Mr. Mischief (1947)
Very funny short
Famous radio announcer Harry Von Zell made 8 shorts for Columbia from 1946-1950. His first effort SO'S YOUR ANTENNA was probably the weakest of the series, which could have been because of the director (Jules White) and the script (courtesy of Zion Myers). But this short is a big improvement thanks to director Edward Bernds, who would direct most of Von Zell's Columbia shorts.
The plot has Harry as a practical joker who loves to play pranks on people, but one day he receives a visit from a mysterious stranger claiming to be the leader of a tribe and wants Harry's head to replace their dead leader. From then on a wild chase ensues all over the studio, causing chaos and even Dudley Dickerson joins in on the fun.
MEET MR. MISCHIEF is a funny and very creative short. One sequence in this film reworks the practical jokes from HALF-SHOT AT SUNRISE, a earlier Columbia short. Emil Sitka also stars in the film as an eccentric radio sponsor. 8/10.