The Babbling Book

George Burns walks into a bookstore, where shopgirl Gracie Allen tries to sell him a copy of THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII. Gracie talks about her brothers, who seem to be twins mistaken for triplets because one of them is two-faced. We also get to.see Donald Meek as her father.

In an effort to give. The dozen shorts they made from 1929 through 1933 some structure, Burns & Allen usually had some situation, ad interaction with other players, usuaully in an effort to give Burns some funny lines; when the act started, after all, he was the comic and Miss Allen was the straight man. Me, I'd rather just hear Gracie talk about her brother.

As far as I can discern, the George Burns and Gracie Allen film shorts had a very simple formula" get George and Gracie to meet in some situation or other, and let them exchange jokes for ten minutes. With their good material, likable characters, and great timing, the was a formula that, simplistic as it might have been, delivered laughs.

Here this is adjusted ever so slightly as we get the chance to demystify Gracie's parents, who don't leave it entirely baffling how such a dizzy child could have been born. I get the feeling that a lot of their early film material was taken from their vaudeville act, and this short does feel very stagy, though not by any means in a very bad way. In fact, the joke of Gracie's getting all bundled up to go to work just next store is accomplished by panning the camera across the border of what could easily have been a theatre set. Interestingly, a similar concept became the trademark of the team's classic TV series two decades later.

Once we get to the conversation between George and Gracie in the bookstore where she works, the jokes don't all seem to be their best material (for instance, the sand being in the book about the desert doesn't really seem to be based on anything and so isn't very funny. Nonetheless, there are some very funny lines and bits of Gracie's trademarked illogic-logic to make this a very entertaining ten minutes.

I've seen several of Burns & Allen's shorts that they made in the 1930s and there is a certain sameness about them. George enters some place and meets Gracie...and then she just goes and goes and goes as George plays the straight man. This is NOT a criticism, their act was quite good, but more to let you know that there are no huge surprises here...just classic Burns & Allen.

In this case, Gracie works for her family's bookstore and George comes in to buy a book. Gracie acts dumb...and George just stands there and enjoys the crazy ride.

Overall, not bad not great...just very much the norm for this duo...like it or not.