Cracked Nuts

That's the way they do it in comic strips when a bad joke takes place. In that case, "Cracked Nuts" would be festooned with these literary exclamations, due to the great number of bad jokes. I take a back seat to no one in my admiration for Wheeler and Woolsey, but this picture must represent the nadir of this very funny comedy team's association.

The inane screenplay is not very good, about Wheeler becoming the king of a mythical kingdom, of which Woolsey is already the king. You can see a very young-looking Boris Karloff as one of his advisers, and also one of Hollywood's best character actresses in Edna May Oliver, who steals most of the scenes she's in. There's a good song and dance number between Wheeler and his girlfriend, Dorothy Lee.

And that's about it in this very disappointing, unfunny comedy. This one is a far cry from "Half Shot At Sunrise", which is one of their best.

Cracked Nuts (1931)

* (out of 4)

This was my second Wheeler and Woosley flick and it'll probably be my last for a while. This film has pretty much been forgotten except it does feature Boris Karloff is one of his non-monster 1931 roles. In the film, Woosley wins the throne of a small country in a dice game but gives it to Wheeler who wants it to impress the aunt of his girlfriend. I somewhat enjoyed the duo's Mummy's Boys but this film here was just dreadful. There were a few funny lines but the rest of the film was rather hard to get through. Karloff is wasted as is Dorothy Lee. One interesting aspect is Lee who does some voice effects, which would later be used by Curly of The Three Stooges.

Mild-mannered millionaire Bert Wheeler sails for the fictional kingdom of El Dorania. On the ship over, he romances fellow American traveler Dorothy Lee, and while Lee reciprocates, her aunt Edna May Oliver most decidedly does not approve. Wheeler hopes to find a way to win the aunt's approval.

Meanwhile, fast talking con man Robert Woolsey unexpectedly finds himself crowned king of El Dorania. When Wheeler and company arrive in port, the plot thickens:

Wheeler is approached by some revolutionaries who would like to make him king; Woolsey discovers that the average life span of a king in these parts is very short; and Wheeler and Woolsey bump into each other down on the docks and it turns out that they are old buddies from back in the States.

The plot is kind of wild and of course completely fantastic. The romantic subplot between Wheeler and Dorothy Lee is silly but cute. The cast includes Boris Karloff as a henchman named Boris.

The best bits are a couple of extended scenes in which Wheeler and Woolsey engage in the sort of rapid-fire pun-filled banter that they clearly perfected back in their vaudeville days. The jokes are not that fresh, even for 1931, but the delivery is perfect.

Lots of fun even if it leaves you wondering what you just saw.

Getting there first, exploring grounds that the Marx Brothers covered so thoroughly in Duck Soup are the RKO team of Wheeler&Woolsey who get themselves mixed up in the politics of some backwater country in South America in Cracked Nuts. Bob Woolsey wins the throne of El Dorania in a crap game and spends the rest of the film trying to avoid assassination plots cooked up by disgruntled general Stanley Fields.

Woolsey's partner Bert Wheeler has his own problems in the romance area. He's in love with Dorothy Lee, but he's got to deal with her formidable aunt, Edna May Oliver. Wheeler is the schnook of the team, playing parts that Eddie Cantor and later Danny Kaye would do with far more acclaim.

Cracked Nuts might not be all its cracked up to be. I'd certainly rate Duck Soup over it. Yet it does have its moments, particularly the last attempt at Woolsey's life by Ben Turpin, dropping bombs during a ceremony.

It's a film that can stand on its own merits. But I wish Edna May Oliver had more screen time. She's a favorite of mine and I've never been disappointed with her in any performance. She's reason enough to see Cracked Nuts.

Wheeler and Woolsey were a first-rate comic team, now forgotten by most, who churned out a great number of money-making comedies for RKO in a brief period from 1930-1937. Until Fred and Ginger came along, they were the top earners for the studio. Sadly, they were often saddled (as they are here) with second-rate material. In this one, they don't get together until almost half an hour into the story, and even when they do, the jokes are pretty bad. They are surrounded with a top cast of players who would go on to better things-Boris Karloff and Edna Mae Oliver, as well as excellent comic support from Stanley Fields as the heavy and Leni Stengel as the vamp. Bert Wheeler's partner here, as she was to be in many of their films to come is the adorable ingenue Dorothy Lee, who doesn't get much to do. The only song she and Wheeler do is badly staged. There are some excellent Ruritanian sets by the studio's art director Max Rée, and a few spirited marches by Max Steiner in his pre-Warner Bros. days. Most of the fault beyond the script belongs to one of the Keystone Cops, Eddie Klein, who directed with a heavy hand. W&W would get better direction and better scripts in the years to come.