Word: slapsticker
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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This is M.G.M.'s idea of modernizing Garbo. Perhaps M.G.M. thought that, because Garbo played a captivating brand of comedy in Ninotchka two years ago, she ought to go on to slapstick. But Ninotchka was played against a dramatic background. Two-Faced Woman is neither dramatic nor funny (except for some hilarious stunt-skiing sequences); it is a trick played on a beautiful, shy, profoundly feminine actress...
Well-cast as a dumb, sleepy, semi-inhibited sophomore named Bradislaus ("Boley") Bolenciewcsz, Oakie mugs Clayton College to a national championship in a wacky welter of song & dance, romance and slapstick. With the greatest of ease he polishes off Yale, 82-to-0; Notre Dame, 6-to-5; Minnesota, 27-to-0. He beats Notre Dame with a last-minute touchdown when someone capitalizes on his fear of floods by yelling, "The dam has burst!" - frightening him the length of the field...
Sucker has no plot and needs none. It is just Fields trying to peddle a scenario to Esoteric Studios. He reads a scene, then plays it. Upshot: a maelstrom of slapstick, song, blackout. episodes, old gags, new gags, confusion. That much of it is truly comic is testimony to the fact that Comedian Fields is one of the funniest men on earth. Whether he is offering a cure for insomnia ("Get plenty of sleep"), refusing a bromo ("couldn't stand the noise"), nasally vocalizing ("chickens have pretty legs in Kansas"), meticulously blowing the head off an ice cream soda...
...this show, however, the result is surprisingly good. Using a slightly shopworn plot of boy-meets-girl-with-funny-ideas, the picture ranks among the better comedies of the year thanks to slapstick by a half dozen bit players and humor by the leads...
...building in the spacious square under the shadow of Memorial Hall. Gone are the days of penny ante outside in the sun, of shirt-sleeved players and the inevitable kibitzers, who represent the common conception of the way a fireman spends his spare time. Science has forced the jovial, slapstick era into the past, and has introduced a strict, well-disciplined machinery to replace the former hit-or-run system of fire-fighting. The modern chief has a fingertip knowledge of the latest fire prevention methods, is a combination of business man, doctor, psychologist, race-track driver, and engineer. Every...