How to Sleep

Robert Benchley narrates with voice over, and then acts the various scenarios in this comedy short. Here he sleep walks, tries warm mile, counts sheep and tosses and turns to try to get to sleep. All with good humor. I've always liked Benchley over some other common narrators of the short fillers for feature films in the mid-20th century. His straight-faced, somber delivery with just a slight cynicism is always worth a smile at least. Benchley made 50 shorts from 1928 to 1945 - most of them in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He visited the doctor, trained a dog, showed how to sub-let a room or apartment, how to raise a baby. Many of these "How to" briefs were hilarious renditions of how not to do something - as in "How to Take a Vacation."

It might sound like an oxymoron, but doing something as simple as going to sleep isn't always so easy. This short from the 1930s shows how even back in these times, people had problems going to bed, even if you just lay there thinking about how tired you are. In fact, this issue was probably worse in the past, as people didn't have access to white noise or other calming sounds whenever they wanted on the internet. The short starts by saying sleep is induced when blood circulation slows down in your brain. Oftentimes what happens is you'll hear something in the middle of the night and you don't know what it is. This will in turn most likely make you spiral into an array of thoughts about what the sound could have been, and those thoughts lead to others. Your mind is now wide awake and it is impossible to go back to bed. Constantly worrying about things is also a good way to keep yourself up. Some people suffer from a form of sleeplessness in which they are not only unable to fall asleep, they cannot remain in bed. It is often accompanied by feelings of suffocation, and happens if you drink too much. The only way to get around this is to not go to sleep at all. We then see a series of photographs taken during a study, where it is shown that a man changed his sleeping position over 50 times during an 8 hour period, which believe it or not is normal. In a comical time lapse, we see the guy sleeping changes positions unconsciously about every 10 or so minutes. It almost defeats the whole reason of going to bed. Lastly, we see how important it is to not become fully conscious if you get up in the middle of the night to drink something. On his way back to bed after getting some water, the man trips over his shoes and lands in the bed, causing him to become wide awake. Once you're in this mental state, you will most likely not be able to get back to bed (until 20 seconds before you need to get up for work, that is). As somebody who is in the habit of rarely willing to go to bed (since there's not enough time in a day to do everything you want), I thought this was a good short. It actually won an Oscar for best comedy short. Robert Benchley had plenty of experience with this as his contract mandated he make a bunch of shorts for Metro Goldwyn during the 30s. The part where he goes over how you are destined to fall asleep right when you're supposed to get up couldn't be more accurate, as sometimes, even going to bed early will not save you from feeling horrible in the morning. Being woken up from a deep rest early in the daytime is such an awful feeling since you're going from one extreme (total lack of senses) to another way too fast, and I never got used to it. Overall, this short shows how important sleep is, since without it, not only does your mind not match up with what you're doing, but you can't really do anything effectively. Not sleeping completely screws with your behavior and well being.

A sleep expert (Robert Benchley) presents a lecture speaking directly into the camera and then he's acting out what he's saying. Robert Benchley is considered a humorist. He's not a real actor. He's slightly fun. This is slightly quirky. It's slightest of slight humor. They're not actual laughs but they have just enough light fun.

This is a delightful short that packs more laughs into ten minutes than you'll get from some feature-length comedies. Although it's been shown occasionally on the Turner Channel, How to Sleep was hard to find in a home-viewable format until recently, when it was included as a special feature in the new DVD release of the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera. Robert Benchley's low-key, whimsical humor serves as a nice lead-in to the Marxes' more aggressive style of comedy.

Mr. Benchley acts as our affable host/narrator, covering such topics as 1) the causes of sleep, 2) methods of inducing sleep, 3) methods of avoiding sleep, and 4) how to wake up, which, we're told, "is very important." But this is no dry academic lecture. Our host, who happens to sport the most outlandish pajamas ever designed, helpfully serves as actor as well, demonstrating various positions such as the Supine Curl, the Ventrolateral Sprawl, and the Sleeping-Sitting Standing Crouch. He is aided in his analysis of sleep by some highly amusing animated segments.

This is a film better seen than described. I only wish I could enjoy it with a large audience in a theater, as it must be a real crowd-pleaser. How to Sleep won the Oscar for Best Short Subject of 1935, and led to Benchley's series of how-to short comedies for MGM and Paramount (including How to Read, How to Eat, etc.), but this one may well be the very best of his output. Heartily recommended.

How to Sleep (1935)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Robert Benchley made dozens of shorts in his career and this here is perhaps the best known. One reason is the title and subject itself but another is the fact that this was Best Short Subject at the Oscars. In the film Benchley explains that sleep comes from the blood flowing out of the brain. The comedian then explains some of the possible ways to make this happen before he turns his attention to the many positions one sleeps in at night. I'd be lying if I said this short deserved an Oscar but in its own way it's pretty clever and it certainly ranks as one of the best in the "How to..." series. I think this one benefits from the subject matter as well as some neat animation used. One example is when we see the blood leaving the brain and another happens later when Benchley is counting sheep. Neither thing is going to make you forget Walt Disney but it was a nice added touch. There are some pretty funny moments here including one where Benchley discusses the various positions someone is in while asleep and mentions that a normal person moves over fifty times a night.