Splat!: Secrets of the Lost Pie Comedies

The long lost second reel of Laurel and Hardy’s The Battle of the Century (1927) has been rediscovered by film historian Jon Mirsalis.  The film is well-known among comedy fans for the sloppily epic pie fight that serves as its climax.  Most of the pie fight had been preserved earlier as part of Robert Youngson’s 1957 compilation film The Golden Age of Comedy, but now we have the pie fight in its entirety along with an additional eight or nine minutes of footage.  Rejoice, lovers of pie comedy!  

Stage entertainers came to realize early on that an actor getting hit in the face with a pie was guaranteed to amuse an audience.  Harry Bernard was required as part of his vaudeville act to routinely smash a custard pie into his partner's face.  According to Variety, the gag drew big laughs when Bernard appeared at San Francisco’s Lyceum Theatre in 1907.

Harry Bernard in Any Old Port! (1932).  Courtesy of http://www.lordheath.com/.

It has been made clear in my examination of comedy history that this type of humor has not always been favored by everyone.  In 1910, a vaudeville comedian named J. A. Murphy wrote a series of satirical articles for Variety about the trials and tribulations of a small town theater manager.  Murphy's fictitious theatre manager, Adam Sowerguy, expressed his grievances in letters to a booking agent, who he addressed only as "Mike."  Adam informed Mike that he was issuing a ban on pie-throwing comedians.  He pleaded, "Don't send me no more pie actors, they mess up the place too much."

The rest of us maintain our love for a good pie fight, which is a fun way to release aggression.  Broadway producer Abe Erlanger was ruthless in the way that he conducted business.  In 1905, he made bitter enemies of the Shubert brothers by refusing to abide by a contract that he had negotiated with middle brother Sam, who had recently died in a train wreck.  Erlanger stated, plainly, that he was under no obligation to keep to an agreement "with a dead man."  The surviving brothers, Lee and Jacob, were appalled.  The Shuberts devoted much of the next six years to breaking the vise-like grip that Erlanger's booking monopoly had on theatre operators.  This level of hate and annihilation can lead to bloodshed and mayhem.  But how did Erlanger react in the end?  In 1911, Erlanger's friends and business associates gathered to celebrate the producer's birthday.  A Variety reporter wrote, "After the cigars, it is said, the pictures of the Messrs. Shubert were tacked upon the wall, when the diners took turns in winning a prize offered to the one who could hit them by a straight throw with a lemon pie."  This story depicts pie-throwing as a gentlemanly form of aggression.

This outtake from Dr. Strangelove (1964) suggests that a pie fight is far less aggressive than a nuclear war.

The pie-in-the-face gag was adopted by film comedians in the early years of film.  In my book Funny Parts, I was able to trace the gag back to a film made in 1905.  More pies were employed in the execution of film comedy within the next few years.  A Moving Picture World critic wrote in his description of Biograph's Love Microbe (1907), "[T]he querulous husband kicks about the food placed before him, criticising vehemently his wife's cooking.  Patient, amiable wifey retaliates by pushing a blackberry pie into his anger-distorted countenance."  Kalem’s 1907 short Woman, Cruel Woman featured another early example of pie-in-the-face comedy.  A cook is exhausted with the pranks of the baker's son.  In a fit of anger, she dumps a bucket of water over the boy’s head.  The boy is enraged.  The Moving Picture World reported that the boy gathers "a goodly share of pumpkin pie in one hand" and smears the gooey mess into the cook's face.  The magazine concluded, "[W]hile she is getting the luscious pie out of eyes and mouth, Baker-boy vanishes, filled with the joy of revenge for the cook's former cruelty.”

The lowly servants were always hurling food at each other in bourgeois domestic comedies.  In Keep Quiet (1912), the master of house deigns to enter the kitchen to break up a fight that has broken out among the help.  He arrives just in time to cross the path of a pie that the cook has sent hurling across the room at her adversary.  On cue, the pie hits the master squarely and messily in his face.  In Topsy-Turvy Sweedie (1914), Sweedie (Wallace Beery) has no sooner started a new job as a domestic cook then she gets into a free-for-all battle with other members of the kitchen staff.  According to Moving Picture World, Sweedie engages in “pie throwing and rolling-pin combats.”

As we learned from Keep Quiet, a steady aim is required to be a pie-thrower.  The 1914 Crystal comedy Getting Vivian Married involved a young man, Charley (Charles De Forrest), who is having a hard time making a good impression on his girlfriend’s father.  During a shopping outing, he becomes infuriated to see another man flirting with his girlfriend.  He attempts to throw a pie at the man, but he misses and splatters his girlfriend's father with the pie instead.

Pie-throwing became a staple in the Keystone comedies.  At first, the critics were amused.  They debated which was the funniest pie - custard pie, blackberry pie or lemon meringue pie.  But, after three years of this, critics had all they could take of the pies and went on a campaign to rid the motion picture industry of this gooey scourge.  Custard pies came to be in their minds part of a maelstrom of low comedy.  Exhibitors Herald wrote of the Ben Turpin comedy Is Any Waitress Safe? (1917), "Another typical Sennett comedy, full of slap-stick antics, pie throwing, vulgarity, and the various other elements which go to make up these comedies."  Critics rallied behind comedian Eddie Foy when the celebrated entertainer walked out on a contract with Keystone because he refused to take a pie in the face.  Many producers were willing to appease the critics.  A Variety editor wrote in 1915, "Nowadays the bigger the mess in comedy scenes the bigger the laughs, yet the days of custard pie throwing, hose drenching, whitewash soaking, chases through mud and the like are numbered, the film makers say."

It had become an overdone formula and the public didn't want to see it anymore.  This was at a time that the movie house manager sat with the audience to get their reaction and listened patiently to what his patrons had to say before they left the theatre.  The time of the pie comedy had passed.  The message was clear from the paying public: no more pies.

     
Look at this ad for Harold Lloyd’s series.  The copy reads, "A custard pie and a pretty girl or two in a bathing suit do not make a comedy." 

This ad for Larry Semon’s The Bakery reads, “Real fun in a real bakery – and not a custard pie thrown!”

In welcoming Max Linder to America, the Moving Picture World noted that Linder’s "art as a comedian" did not depend on "his aim as a twirler of custard pies."

Al Christie, a prominent producer of comedy films, was glad to see Hollywood moving away from pie fights.  He told Moving Picture World in 1917, "The unexpected propulsion of a custard pie may provoke a shout of laughter, but the tribulations of sane, human characters, and the humorous exposition of their frailties are the basis of true comedy."

The frailties of human nature was of no interest to another prominent producer, Henry Lehrman.  Lehrman was determined to outdo his former boss, Mack Sennett, when he established the L-KO comedy series.  The L-KO comedy Surf Scandal (1917) reflected Lehrman’s ambitions.  L-KO's publicist promised that this comedy was “full of thrills and speedy comedy sensations."  Moving Picture World wrote of "special excitement being created by a rock-blast that required two hundred pounds of dynamite to accomplish."  The film, which Motion Picture News called a "timely hot-weather feature," provided a big finish in the form of an extravagant pie fight at a beach.  As could be expected, not everyone was thrilled to see a pie fight elevated to a grand scale.  It was too much of a bad thing.  Moving Picture World grumpily described the "pie-throwing episode" as "somewhat overdone." 

So, what could this critic and critics like him have thought of The Battle of the Century?  It is important to understand that The Battle of the Century was unlike any other pie comedy that had come before.

Stan Laurel initially resisted the idea of including a pie fight in the film.  Film historian John McCabe wrote, "Pies, after all, were pies.  That was early Sennett, mid-Chaplin, and late everybody.  This was 1927, an enlightened age.  Despite this general reaction, Stan pondered the idea and brought forth what he hoped would be a variation good enough for consideration."

"Look," said Laurel, "if we make a pie picture – let’s make a pie picture to end all pie pictures.  Let’s give them so many pies that there will never be room for any more pie pictures in the whole history of the movies."

Laurel was determined to redefine and resolve the pie comedy.  He said, "We went at it, strange as it may sound, psychologically.  We made every one of the pies count.  A well-dressed man strolling casually down the avenue, struck squarely in the face by a large pastry, would not proceed at once to gnash his teeth, wave his arms in the air and leap up and down.  His first reaction, it is reasonable to suppose, would be one of numb disbelief.  Then embarrassment, and a quick survey of the damage done to his person.  Then indignation and a desire for revenge would possess him; if he saw another pie close at hand, still unspoiled, he would grab it and let it fly."

This was no longer about the mere propulsion of a pie.  We now saw what Christie spoke about - "the tribulations of sane, human characters."  Time was made to show the reaction of the custard-splattered victim.  The audience senses their embarrassment and their indignation.  Film historian Richard Bann identified this as a new type of slapstick – a "slow slapstick." 

The scene starts with Laurel and Hardy getting into a pie fight with a pie vendor (Charlie Hall).  Laurel said, "Gradually, one by one, other people get into the argument until finally the entire street, a full block, is pie-crazy.  Everybody is pie-throwing happy.  The camera goes up to take a panorama view of all these people throwing, throwing, throwing.  There are pies thrown into a dentist’s office, in windows, out of them.  Nothing but pies – thousands of them."

 
Novelist Henry Miller, a fan of The Battle of the Century, called this scene "the ultimate in burlesque."  Pamela Hutchinson, a Guardian editor, aptly identified the scene as an "all-out epic splatterfest."


Additional note

The Battle of the Century was not the pie picture to end all pie pictures because, immediately afterwards, there came at least one weak imitation.  The film, which stars Jimmy Aubrey, is called Keep Smiling (1928).

That same year, Marion Davies threw a pie in Show People.

It must be noted that Laurel and Hardy, themselves, returned to the pie fight within months after the release of The Battle of the Century.  Here are Stan and Ollie in Their Purple Moment (1928).

Of course, the Three Stooges later became the undisputed masters of the pie fight.

 

Book Review: “Living Large: Wilna Hervey and Nan Mason”

 

The visually surreal world of silent film comedy enthusiastically welcomed irregularly proportioned actors.  The people who cast these films kept a sharp lookout for actors who were very tall, or very short, or very fat, or very thin.  The big girls in the casting pool were especially useful.  For proof of this, look no further than the extensive filmographies of outsized funny ladies like Babe London and Blanche Payson.

Babe London

This world got even more surreal and more exaggerated when filmmakers produced adaptations of comic strips, which were meant to provide a larger-than-life representation of the real world. 

Universal Pictures adapted Sidney Smith's "The Gumps" comic strip into a film series in 1923.

Fontaine Fox's “Toonerville Trolley” comic strip provided a distorted funhouse mirror version of the small suburban town of Pelham, which was located 19 miles outside of Manhattan in Westchester County.  The comic strip, which was syndicated in hundreds of newspapers across the country, produced extensive merchandise, including wind-up toys and a board game.

 

In 1920, the Betzwood film studio (formerly Lubin) set out to adapt the comic strip into a series of live-action shorts.  The comic strip had a large cast of characters, including The Terrible Tempered Mr. Bang, Mickey (Himself) McGuire, Taeny Thompkins (the World's Smallest Football Player), Cynthia Snoop, Aunt Eppie Hogg (The Fattest Woman in Three Counties) and Little Woo-Woo Wortle, but the series was specifically designed to focus on two characters.

 
John Weber, blogger and comics enthusiast, wrote, “By far, the most prominent of Toonerville's denizens was The Skipper, possibly the most hair-raising driver in all toondom.  What he drove, The Toonerville Trolley. . ., was perhaps toondom's most hair-raising conveyance. . .”   The trolley had to be fierce to travel the treacherously steep path up and down Mount Misery.

Hired to play the grizzled motorman of the valiant old trolley was a veteran vaudeville comic named Dan Mason.

The second character to play a prominent role in the series was the Powerful Katrinka.  Joseph P. Eckhardt, the author of Living Large, identified the character as follows: “Katrinka. . . was a hefty and innocent creature who seemed oblivious to the extent of her own physical strength.”

Wilna Hervey was certainly a big girl.  She was as tall as Payson and as heavy as London.  When she showed up at her agent’s office to meet Fox, the clever cartoonist who had created the eccentric population of Toonerville had no doubt that Wilna would be perfect for the role of Katrinka.

The series went into production accompanied by a fair amount of excitement and fanfare.  In their determination to attract an audience to the new series, the film company invested a considerable sum of money to stage a train wreck, the details of which were widely distributed to newspapers.  Vehicular mayhem remained a prominent element of the series.  In the films, as in the comic strips, the Skipper drove in a frenzy to get his rickety trolley to the train station in time to pick up arriving commuters.

Hervey was still fairly new to acting, but Mason became her mentor.  As it turned out, the actress got the biggest laughs in the series.  Sight gags were designed to emphasize her character's superhuman strength.  She could toss a telephone pole, twist metal pipes with her bare hands, and rip trolley tracks out of the ground.  Hervey brought her own childish innocence, boundless enthusiasm and captivating charm to the role.

When the Betzwood studio abruptly closed, the series continued under a new name at a new studio.  Toonerville became Plum Center.  Skipper became Pop Tuttle.  Katrinka became Tillie.  The old trolley became an old bus.  Tillie was made the depot agent, which gave Wilna a larger role in the films.  Tillie was always acting as Pop's savior whenever the bus operator got into trouble.  Take, for instance, Pop Tuttle's Polecat Plot.  Pop is preparing for a race against a rival bus owner, Nosey Nichols, when Nosey loosens a nut on a wheel of Pop's bus.  When the wheel falls off, Tillie keeps Pop in the race by using a wheelbarrow to support the broken wheel.  Let’s look, too, at Pop Tuttle, Detekative.  After earning a degree from a correspondence detective school, Pop is confident that he can track down a thief responsible for a crime epidemic in the community. But the thief proves to be more than Pop can handle and, in the end, Pop must rely on Tillie breaking him free of his own handcuffs and using her brute force to overpower and capture the criminal.

While working on the series, Wilna developed a close relationship with Mason's daughter Nan.  After the series ended, Wilna moved with Nan to a vibrant art community in Woodstock.  The couple established a farm called Treasure Farm, where they worked hard to develop themselves as artists.  Their winning charm, charitable activities and outgoing personalities made them local celebrities.  The women became best known for the flamboyant parties they arranged to raise money for local causes.  People loved being around the couple because the love and enthusiasm that they conveyed was contagious.

It could not be said that life was always simple and easy for Wilna and Nan.  An ebullient approach to life does not always have the best outcome.  Their lives were, as one book critic aptly described it, haphazard.  But, besides being resourceful, they had friends and family who were always willing to help them through rough patches. 

Their story is inspirational because, as Eckhardt has said, these were two people who "followed their bliss."  They led full and happy lives.  The couple devoted themselves to art, travel, the occasional enterprise and, most of all, each other.  The book is mainly a story of love and friendship between two unconventional women.

The passion and devotion that Eckhardt feels toward his subjects is evident from the first page of Living Large to the last.  The author provides a tender and vivid portrait of Wilna and Nan.  The beautifully designed book enriches this portrait with many illustrations that showcase the women's paintings and photographs. 

The comedy fans that frequent this site will probably be interested to know that Wilna got into a tussle on screen with the Three Stooges.  Wilna was more than a match for the Stooges, who soon found themselves being lifted and tossed through the air by the Amazonian young woman.  The rowdy encounter occurred in Pain in the Pullman (1936).  The team’s rough style of comedy was not to the actress' liking.

 Click here to order.

Additional notes

Other film adaptions of the “Toonerville Trolley” comic strip were produced.  McGuire, the town bully, was a favorite of the comic strip’s fans.  Weber wrote, “Mickey was the terror of the town, a bully who fought the local boys, teachers and truant officers.  He could show up most anywhere, but never seemed to have a home to go to.”  Beginning in 1927, the character was featured in a popular long-running series starring Mickey Rooney.

The Van Beuren animation studio was clearly influenced by the Betzwood films when they turned out "Toonerville Trolley" cartoons in the late 1930s.

 

"That's What They Call The Old Nightmare!"

Laughs and scares were promoted by a number of Commedia dell'arte routines, including "Lazzi of the Ghost," "Lazzi of Fear," "Lazzi of the Nightfall," and "Lazzo of the Living Corpse."  Similar routines later turned up in minstrel shows and medicine shows.  The most popular of these routines were "The Ghost in a Pawnshop," "What Happened in Room 44?," "The Three O'Clock Train," "Over the River, Charlie!," and "Razor Jim."  These sketches started out as distinct works, but elements of the works merged together in time and no one could remember which parts came from which sketches.  The haunted house comedy as we know it today is derived from these frightfully amusing playlets. 
 
I will tell you what I can about each of these routines.  I will skip "The Ghost in a Pawnshop" because I discussed this routine in a prior post.  Let us move on, instead, to "What Happened in Room 44?"  The premise of this routine is not particularly funny.  A hotel guest is put into a room where a man was murdered and is startled by repeated appearances of the murdered man's ghost.  The minstrel version of the skit had an extra plot detail.  The hotel proprietor purposely puts the black (blackface) comic in the room because having a black man sleep overnight in the room is supposed to remove the room of its murder-scene bedevilment.

"The Three O'Clock Train," which was written by minstrel performer Geo. H. Coes, cast the Comic in the role of a traveler passing through town.  He has to catch the three o'clock train the next day and he needs to find a place where he can spend the night.  He meets a man (The Straight Man), who offers him a place to stay.  Unfortunately, the Comic soon learns that the offer has a dire catch.

Straight: I've had the greatest time trying to find a nice house to live in.  I've hunted this city all over, and the only place I could find to suit me is this place; and now I've come here, the landlord tells me that the house is haunted; says there are ghosts walking around here at midnight; says the house hasn't been occupied for the last six years on account of it.  Now it's just the house I want.  I don't believe in ghosts.  I don't believe there was ever such a thing as a ghost.  So he told me I could stay here until twelve o'clock to-night, and if there was no ghost come, I could have the house for nothing for six months.  So I'll just sit down here and amuse myself with my banjo until that time, and if nothing comes along, why I've got a good thing as I want.

Coes, a talented musician, included the banjo into the routine so that a song could be introduced to further enliven the proceedings.  The title of this article is a lyric from that song. 

The Comic believes that the banjo-strumming Straight Man is being too nonchalant about the situation.  "Don't you understand?" he asks. "There's ghosts — spirits — hobgoblins — Beelzebubs  —  demons — and everything floating around here every night at midnight."  The Straight Man offers to give the Comic half of the house for nothing if he stays there with him until twelve o'clock.

Comic: Well, if these ghosts come, will you tackle them first?

Straight: Certainly, I will.

Comic: I'll take one hack at 'em anyway.

While the Straight Man plays his song, a horrible noise comes from the next room.  The Comic jumps, kicks his chair back, and trembles violently.

Straight: Say, what's the matter with you?

Comic: Did you hear that noise?

Straight: What noise?

Comic: Something went boo — oo — oo — that way.

Straight: Nonsense!  How can anybody make any noise when the house is empty?

Comic: I wish it was empty; I wish I was out of it.

Straight: Come on, sit down.

Comic (pulling back): What time did you say the three o'clock train went out?

Straight (pulls him in the chair): I never see a fellow get as scared as you.

Comic: I know, I got ears.  I heard him sure.

Straight: Now I'll sing the second verse.

Comic: Yes, it will be worse for us if we stay here.

(The Straight Man sings.  Gong sounds outside.)

Comic: Oh, don't.  Let's git out of here.  Come on.

(The Straight Man goes on singing.  While he is singing the chorus, the Ghost comes from left hand side and stands.  When the Comic sees him he jumps up, this time very much frightened, with one hand pointed left and the other up, shaking very violently.)

Straight: Say, what is the matter with you?

Comic: I seen him!

Straight: See what?

Comic: Ghost!

Straight: Nonsense!

Comic: Sixteen foot high!

Straight: Why, you're crazy!

Comic: All dressed up in white!

Straight: I tell you, you don't know what you are talking about.

Comic: Had horns on his head.

Straight: Oh, get out, you're frightened at nothing.

Comic: Went out through the keyhole.

Straight: Come on, don't be so foolish.

Comic: Don't you smell the brimstone?

Straight: Nothing of the kind.  Come on and sit down.

Comic: Don't you s'pose I know when I see him — great big fellow, blue fire coming out of his eyes, nose, and ears, and mouth.  I know I saw him easy enough.

Straight: Oh, you think you saw a ghost.  Now 'twas only imagination.

Comic: I don't know whether it was him or not, but I see him.

(The Ghost enters the room and taps the Straight Man on the shoulder; he sees him and runs off; then it goes right of the Comic, who sees him; then his hat flies off, wig goes up, general fright, noise, gong, etc.)

Coes added the following note at the end of the script: "The business of this act must be as natural as possible, and the actors must govern themselves accordingly.  It is a good act, and when done well, never fails to convulse the audience.  It should be rehearsed well before putting it on the stage, as the business is very particular."

It is probably best to start our discussion of "Over the River, Charlie!" with a explanation of the scene's title.  The two lead characters, Jake and Charlie, have gotten trapped in a haunted house.  Jake is a blubbering coward.  He becomes helplessly terrified after seeing a knife-wielding ghost.  He is sure that, at any moment, the ghost is going to return to "scalp" him.  He refuses to be left alone, but his friend Charlie needs to step out of the room.

Jake: What if something goes wrong? 

Charlie: I won't be far away.  You just yell out "Over the river, Charlie" and I'll be RIGHT HERE.

So, whenever something frightens him, Jake screams, "Over the River, Charlie!"  The routine was at one time committed to paper by a writer named O. E. Young.  Excerpts can be found online.  In time, the title and the catchphrase was shortened to "Oh, Charlie!" 

The highlight of "Over the River, Charlie!" was a scene in which Jake observes a candle, untouched by human hand, move back and forth across a table.  In another key scene, the ghost creeps up unnoticed behind Jake and Charlie.  The ghost taps Charlie on the shoulder.  Charlie turns and, terrified by what he sees, he silently exits the stage.  Jake, unaware of the situation, continues an argument that he was having with Charlie.  The ghost speaks up in a somber tone that Jake fails to recognize. 

Jake: You got a cold or sumpin, Boss?  Your voice sure changed sudden-like.  (Jake slowly looks around at the ghost, then runs offstage with the ghost riding on his back.)

The ghost was not at all scary by today's standards.  He was usually a man wearing pale make-up and a fright wig.  Or, he might simply be a man in a long white sheet.

The Gorilla (1927)

The stalking ghost scene became the most popular setpiece in haunted house comedies.  It evolved decade after decade until it reached perfect absurdity.  The comedian is being trailed by a fiendish figure, but he thinks that it's his friend behind him.  He doesn't want the two of them to get separated in the dark so he suggests that his friend take hold of his hand.  The fiend obligingly takes hold of his hand and is now able to follow the comedian even more closely than before.  This bit of business was a highlight of Ralph Spence's 1925 Broadway play "The Gorilla."  Two years later, the film version of the play established this as a stock situation in funny haunted house films.  But the routine undoubtedly goes back to "Over the River, Charlie!" and "Razor Jim."  Razor Jim distinguished himself from Jake and Charlie's ghost by the fact that he crept up on unsuspecting house guests with a ready straight razor.

These funny haunted house doings were among the first type of comic situations that transferred from stage to screen.  The above image shows Lloyd Hamilton and Bud Duncan encountering a ghost in a 1915 comedy, The Spook Raisers.

Harry Ritz and Poe the Gorilla (Art Miles) in The Gorilla (1939)

One of my favorite versions of this routine was performed by the wonderful Harry Ritz in the 1939 remake of The Gorilla.

The Three Stooges did several versions of this routine.

At the end of "Charlie," Jake is captured by a mad scientist who assumes that he is a corpse and is prepared to dissect him.  This is the way that the scene is described in the script:

Dr. Kelly: Aha - alone at last!  (He lifts the cover from the face and jumps back in surprise.)  I do believe half the proof is right here, right now, that I was right.  The corpse is turning black already!  Dear me!  This means that I can't wait till tomorrow.  Let's see, I guess I'll start at this end.  (Indicates the head.  The doctor turns around and bends over to pick up a tool.  As he does, Jake hastily switches ends.  The doctor raises up cover and sees the feet where the head had been seconds before.)  Dear me!  I've worried so much over this I'm afraid I'm losing my mind.  I could have sworn the head was here moments ago.  Oh, well, I can work on his feet first, it really doesn't matter.  (He turns, bends over to exchange a tool, and Jake switches ends again.  Doctor sees that the feet are gone and the head is back.  He walks towards the footlights.)  Something is very strange here."

The critics remembered the old routines and they frequently mentioned them in their reviews.  A connection between "Over the River Charlie!" and Bebe Daniels' 1928 feature comedy Feel My Pulse (1928) was made by Exhibitors Herald.  The critic wrote of Feel My Pulse, "It proceeds to place [Daniels] in a supposed sanitarium that is really operated as a base for rum-runners.  It continues by modernizing 'Over the River Charlie' and a lot of other good old medicine show acts and finishes in a hand-to-hand battle by the entire company a la Sennett, Chaplin and the rest of the slapstickers."  Feel My Pulse has no moving candles or stalking ghosts.  But it is similar to at least one variation of "Over the River, Charlie" in which the haunted house turns out to be a base of operation for criminals, who have only been pretending to be ghosts to scare off interlopers.

A critic with Motion Picture Herald pointed out similarities between "Over the River, Charlie" and RKO's whodunit spoof Super-Sleuth (1937).  The similarities were obvious.  Mark Waltz, an Imdb critic, had no trouble summarizing the various stock gags.  He wrote, "There's really little amusement in this. . . until the ending confrontation in a haunted house where trapped doors and secret entrances keep the characters disappearing and reappearing."

An Oakland Tribune critic, Wood Soanes, discussed this matter at length in an article dated June 16, 1939.  He wrote: "Gracie Allen is matching her nitwits against those of the Ritz Brothers on the screen of the Fox Oakland this week, and while there is more suavity to Miss Allen's The Gracie Allen Murder Case, there is certainly more guffawing in the Ritz Brothers' The Gorilla.  The two productions even have one gag in common, a ghost-trailing sequence that first came to life back in the days of the 'box acts' when comedians didn't bother, because of complete unacquaintance with their A-B-C's to commit gags to paper.  It stems either from 'Razor Jim' or 'Over the River, Charlie,' pretty hilarious in the [1880s]."

Blondie Has Servant Trouble (1940)

Roscoe Williams wrote of Columbia's 1940 comedy Blondie Has Servant Trouble (1940) in Motion Picture Daily, "Dipping deeply into the 'haunted house' reservoir of comedy resources, reliable since the 'Over the River Charlie' of medicine show days, this sixth release in the 'Blondie' series hits a new high in entertainment value."  The Bumsteads find themselves in a spooky house with revolving walls and hidden passages.  A body falls out of a closet.  A maniac with a knife stalks the blundering Dagwood (Arthur Lake) through dark corridors.

The haunted house comedy reached a high point with Abbott and Costello's Hold That Ghost (1941).  Roscoe Williams (again) wrote in Motion Picture Daily, "Hold That Ghost is, with few modernizations and no trimmings, the classic skit of the medicine-show era, known variously as 'Over the River Charlie,' 'Oh Charlie,' etc., which had ghosts shuttling in and out of a haunted house or hotel to the consternation of the comedians and, of course, the onlookers.  Hold That Ghost has more ghosts, all phoney, and more shuttlings, all timed to a nicety, than your grandpappy ever dreamed of."

Hold That Ghost, with its "Oh, Chuck!" cries, its moving candles, its shadowy gangsters and its trailing ghost, relied on those old routines to a large extent.  The working title of the film was, in fact, Oh, Charlie!  But, in all likelihood, no one before had ever done this material better.

The Rehash Blues

Variety's critics hated comedy shows that were nothing more than a patchwork of old routines.  A Variety critic flatly dismissed a 1921 revue with the line, "All of the hoke and standards were present."  Another Variety critic, George M. Young, provided a more specific complaint in an opinion piece published on December 12, 1908.  Young wrote, "Season after season hackneyed material is offered by managers who pretend to have a good show.  The rehashing of old time afterpieces which have been doing duty since the days when they were always a part of a variety show is what they offer as up-to-date entertainment.  Such old time pieces as 'A Crowded Hotel,' 'Forbidden Fruit,' 'First Night's Record,' 'Irish Justice,' 'Blow the Horn,' 'Pink Dominoes,' 'Pompey's Patients,' 'Two Married Men,' and a hundred other skits popular in variety when William J. Carroll, Harry G. Richmond, George Murphy, Louise Robie and others of their class put them on weekly, have been twisted and made over until it is a question just where the origin of any belongs."

This issue was again raised in a review of a show at the Eltinge Theatre on August 4, 1937.  The critic wrote, "Comedy bits have nearly everything they'd been doing for years in burlesque save 'Ghost in the Pawn Shop' and 'Irish Justice,' which just couldn't be crowded in.  And maybe they'll be in next week.  McAllister and Fields are rowdy throughout, especially in the 'Crystal Gazer' and 'Tailor Shop' bits.  [Harry] Evanson and [Chick] Hunter struggle valiantly with 'Life Saver' and 'Telegraph Office,' both venerable and refusing to be resuscitated."

I have written before about "Ghost in the Pawn Shop," "Irish Justice" and "Pompey's Patients."  A script for "Pink Dominoes" is available online here.  The "Big Foot Wallace" routine has left behind no clear written record that I can find.  It was presumably a spoof of the daring exploits of real-life Texas ranger William "Big Foot" Wallace.  I do know that, at some point in the scene, the comic hero is startled by the sudden appearance of a lion (an actor in a laughable costume).

William "Big Foot" Wallace

I was particularly curious about the "Blow the Horn" routine.  What exactly was this routine?  A Variety critic came across the team Willard and Williamson performing the bit at the 23rd Street Theatre in July, 1919.  He wrote, "For a finish the team uses 'Blow the Horn,' evidently new to the 23rd Street bunch, judging by the way they ate it up."

A Variety critic found that the routine was used favorably in "Pat White and His Gaiety Girls" revue, which debuted at the Trocadero in September, 1909.  He wrote, "White had the house from the very instant he stepped on the stage, and he never lost them.  Even when the time-worn 'Blow the Horn' bit was introduced near the finish of the first part, the audience didn't stop laughing, and if anyone ever got more out of this old bit of comedy than White did, it must have held up a show somewhere."

Pat White generated enthusiastic reviews wherever he went.

Variety's critics frequently referenced the "Blow the Horn" routine, but they never bothered to explain the specific antics that comprised the routine.  But, then, a critic mentioned comics engaging in the "Blow the Horn" business during an encounter with Indians in a routine called "On the Frontier."  It was now that I was able to tentatively identify the routine.  It was, apparently, the "Blow the Whistle" routine from Abbott and Costello's Pardon My Sarong (1942).  Abbott and Costello think that they have the perfect idea for dealing with any tropical island cannibal that crosses their path.  Abbott will blow a whistle to distract the cannibal and this will give Costello the opportunity to come up behind the cannibal and whack him over the head with his club.  The problem is that, at the exact moment that a cannibal springs out of the brush, Abbott realizes that he has carelessly misplaced the whistle. 

The same routine was done with the appropriate horn and Indians in an earlier film, Ham Among the Redskins (1915).

The revivals of old routines did not always dissatisfy critics.  A Variety critic was pleased when a couple of young fellows, Jimmy Cole and Dan Collins, did the "water in the hat" trick in a new way.  He joked, "You can't stop this wave of progressiveness which is permeating the nation at present."

I need to head out now to a doctor's appointment.  Can anyone give me a ride?

A Slapstick Judge

The most popular and most frequently staged burlesque sketch was "Irish Justice."  It went by many other names, including "A Day in Court" and "Police Court."  A judge sat atop his bench and listened unhappily to the pleadings of various miscreants.  He invariably delivered his judgment by leaning over the bench and striking the miscreant with an inflated bladder.  Variety approved of the way the skit was staged for Progressive wheel's "Dolly Dimple Girls" revue.  This variation of the sketch, billed as "Trial of the Underworld," debuted in November, 1913.  The critic wrote, "It's J. Theo. Murphy's old stand-by and he went right to it, bladder, hammer, mallet, everything — he missed nothing as the judge.  The nance cop, the district attorney, the lawyer for the defense and the actress who stripped to tights in the court room — well, it was 'Irish Justice,' as rough as it can be made, and the skit got the laughs." 

Many comedians essayed the role of the judge during the decades in which this routine remained popular.  The indefatigable Bobby Clark made an excellent judge, freely dispensing the essential hit-'em-on-the-head comebacks to the unfortunates who approached his bench.  Pigmeat Markham became popular with a variation of the routine known as "Here Comes Da Judge."  Markham claimed to use a real animal bladder in the act.  He said, "I can't tell you where I get them, but someone at the slaughterhouse picks them up for me.  I tried many things, but this is the only thing that gives me that real good sound when it crashes on someone's head."

The trial scene in Warner Brothers' We're in the Money (1935) was identified by a critic as "good old Irish Justice."  The critic added, "It's all done in fast tempo with Hugh Herbert getting most of the laughs as a nit-wit lawyer.  Blondell and Farrell are their usual bright and aggressive selves, adding to the fun and excitement."  But a truly faithful version of "Irish Justice" was not recorded on film until the routine was revived for the Laugh-In show in 1968.


Additional note

"Irish Justice" should not be confused with a comedy sketch called "Virginia Judge," which was performed for many years by Walter Kelly.  The routines had similar elements, but they were for the most part distinct and different acts.

Court adjourned.

Hotel Topsy Turvy

"Hotel Topsy Turvy," a burlesque farce, opened at the Lafayette Theater in Washington, D. C., on September 19, 1898.  It was an American remake of the French musical farce "L'Auberge du Tohu-Bohu."  The show, which proved to be immensely popular, did much to elevate the status of its stars, Marie Dressler and Eddie Foy.

The play was essentially a romantic comedy.  A young man, Louis, is heartbroken because the woman that he loves is to be married off by her father to a pompous count.  It doesn't matter to the father that neither he nor his daughter has ever met the count.  The father and the count arrange to finalize the wedding plans at the White House Inn.  In the meantime, Louis encounters Cluny's Colossal Combination, an impoverished troupe of acrobats that has stopped off in town.  Louis takes a liking to Mme. Flora (Marie Dressler), the manager of the troupe, and takes pity on her and her acrobats.  He figures out a way that he can help her.  His aunt and uncle are out of town and, while their home is unoccupied, he can let the troupe stay there.  Mme. Flora is grateful and proposes that she help Louis with his own problems.  She has two of her men take down the inn's sign and put it up across the street at his aunt and uncle's home.  Her plan is to have a clown acrobat (Eddie Foy) masquerade as the count and act so terribly that the father will cancel his plans for the wedding.