Slapsie Maxie's

Slapsie Maxie's was a real nightclub owned by ex-light heavyweight boxing champ, Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom. After his boxing career ended, he entered films where he usually played good natured idiots or hired goons. I mention this because the film is supposedly set at his nightclub and the film stars the ex-champ.

Here is the story. The current boxing champ, Tiger Dorsey (the actor Frank Faylen) is accidentally knocked out by a wimpy waiter at the nightclub. To capitalize on all the attention this story got in the papers, Maxie arranges a boxing match between the waiter and the champ.

This film has one major problem...it's not the least bit funny. This is a serious problem as it was intended to be a comedy! A lot of lame laughs and a stupid boxing match don't equate to a story I could recommend to anyone....not even for someone I dislike.

At Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom's cafe, boxing champion Frank Faylen comes in and orders a drink. When waiter Johnny Davis tries to sell him some hors d'oeuvres, Faylen takes a swing at him, and clocks himself. The public demands a rematch, so Rosenbloom takes over his training.

Rosenbloom was a fighter who became a public character, and settled into the movies as a Runyonesque fellow who spouted malapropisms in movies that called for it. That's what he does in this two-reel short for Warner Brothers.

Director Noel M. Smith was one of those directors who was making a name for himself in the silent era, when talkies came in and his career flopped hard into the cheap independents in the early 1930s. He worked himself back to the Warner Brother B division, but his career stalled in the early 1940s. He died in 1955, aged 62.

This is a boxing short from '39 from Warner's Vitaphone company with the accent on comedy. Maxie plays himself as the owner of Slapsie Maxie's restaurant/cafe. His best friend is a waiter who wants to meet the current light heavyweight champ (FRANK FAYLEN) and Maxie finally agrees to let him wait on the champ's table.

What happens is a misfire that has the waiter accidentally knocking Faylen out with a single blow when a tray hits him on the head. From then on, the press makes a big thing out of a story about a waiter knocking out the champ and everybody's clamoring for a re-match in the ring.

It's all played for laughs and the chuckles come easily. Maxie has to resort to trickery to force the champ to face defeat in the ring, after the champ's guys play a dirty trick on the waiter.

Summing up: Well paced Warner short is good for a few laughs. You can spot GLENN LANGAN and JOHN RIDGLEY as newspaper reporters. Langan would later go on to play in several important Fox films but never reached full-time stardom.

I have recently started enjoying older movies of the past 100 years, and came across this interesting short on TCM. I thought it to be more like an episode from a potential TV series in the 40's or 50's. The acting, while certainly not of Oscar contention, it fun and harmless. It was interesting to see the light hearted slapstick humor used with real ex-boxers turned "actors". No big entertainment value here, except a "feel good" impression after seeing it. In the era of realism or big budget special effects of today's movies, it's nice to find comfort and refuge in mindless, light hearted slapstick shorts such as Slapsie Maxie's. Any movie that can leave me with a smile on my face at the end of watching it gets a vote from me!

8 out 10 ***

Former boxing champ Slapsie Maxie (Maxie Rosenbloom) owns a nightclub. Present day champ Tiger Dorsey dominates his competition. Dorsey has come to the club with his entourage after his easy fight. Johnny, the Waiter, pesters him and accidentally knocks him out. The newspapers make a meal of the story and Johnny is set to fight the champ in the ring.

This is slapstick without the charisma. Maxie is a bit stiff. He's a former boxer and that's his acting style. He reminds me of Mike Tyson without the face tattoo. I can see the charm and I'm sure people liked him as much as people today like Mike. As for Johnny, he is a fine bumbling co-star but he is pushed to be the lead. He gets to do most of the slapstick with Dorsey, the champ. In many ways, this is Maxie's movie but he's not the one doing the heavy lifting. That division is the movie's weakness. If Maxie is the star, then he should play the waiter.