The Fall Guy

The last Pete Smith Special for MGM focuses on Dave O'Brien, also known as Dave Barclay. It's a collection of slapstick gags from some of the shorts O'Brien wrote, directed (as 'David Barclay') and starred in for Smith over the years.

O'Brien had a 26-year career as an actor in the movies, with 174 feature appearances listed on the IMDb. Most of them were in B westerns and many were uncredited bit parts. After his last appearance in 1956, he worked for Red Skelton's TV show as a gag writer for a decade and died in 1969, a relatively young 57. Stunt work like he did for a Smith called Pete is tough work. Even so, the combination of Barclay's hapless pratfalls and Smith's nasal, cornball humor were an irresistible combination, until the day came when MGM got out of short subject production.

Anyway, thanks, Dave.

The last of MGM's "A Pete Smith Specialty" shorts is a compilation featuring some of star Dave O'Brien's best routines. As usual, Pete Smith provides appropriate narration. They were nicely matched. The director, David Barclay, is an alias for Mr. O'Brien. The stunt-man and director was later a successful writer, but O'Brien may be best-remembered for his amusing role in "Reefer Madness" (1936). He went straight as an "older brother" type in the Bowery's "East Side Kids" movies and was a regular in westerns. O'Brien was great in these shorts and "The Fall Guy" is a nice selection. This compilation would seem to guarantee a long-running series, but TV and wide-screen changed film-goers' expectations. The newsreel, cartoon, short and movie evenings at the cinema were ending.

******** The Fall Guy (6/4/55) Dave O'Brien ~ Dave O'Brien, Pete Smith

It was nice that MGM let the final Pete Smith short be about Dave O'Brien/Dave Barclay's contribution to the series. However, if you only saw this short, you'd think that Dave was only contributing stunts to slapstick comedy. He was much more than that, and so was the series. Coming from poverty row as an actor, he wrote, directed, and acted in the Pete Smith shorts. He was gifted at pantomime, and that was needed because the Pete Smith series was Smith narrating over O'Brien's actions.

The big studios stopped making one reel comic shorts in the 50s because of the economizing that had to be done due to competition with television. But this didn't get O'Brien down. He spent the rest of his life as a writer for Red Skelton on TV, and died at only age 57 in 1969.

This short is entertaining enough. I would probably give it a higher rating if it pointed out the diversity of Dave's talent.