The Emergency Case

Emergency Case, The (1930)

* (out of 4)

Extremely poor Vitaphone short has a man (Hugh Cameron) pretending to be a cop so that he can get out of a speeding ticket. His luck turns when the cops comes to him to treat his wife who has some sort of ailment. This 9-minute comedy doesn't have a single laugh in it and the only reason I don't rate it even lower is that it doesn't get that bad thanks to it not running long enough to reach worse levels. The biggest problem here is that Cameron is horrible in the role and doesn't have an inch of comic timing. I'm going to guess the producers thought he could talk and act fast enough to make people laugh but comedy doesn't work like this. Just check out the final sequence where he's trying to make up an illness for the wife. It's poorly executed and it seems like Cameron is reaching every which way he can trying to grab onto any type of laugh. I'm really not sure what they were thinking but even the storyline itself isn't anything special and it's not even mildly entertaining in a "so bad it's good" way. A real misfire from start to finish.

While his brother the doctor is out of town, Hugh Cameron uses his car and status to talk his way out of traffic tickets, pick up girls, and perform operations.

It's the sort of skit that might play on the vaudeville circuit or be performed in front of the stage curtains while the sets were changed behind it. Cameron is facile, if stagey, which is hardly surprising. He had been playing on the New York stage since 1903. Might he make a movie performer? Warner Brothers used their Vitaphone shorts, shot out in Brooklyn, as screen tests as much as fillers for movie programs.

Cameron would make about 25 appearances in movies, almost all of them shorts or supporting roles in features shot in the East for minor producers. He would continue to perform on the stage through 1940, and die the following year, aged 63.

Hugh Cameron is a bookie who picks up a woman in his doctor brother's car - by simply plucking her off the street! When he speeds off with her, policeman Al Ochs gives chase. Stopping the pair, Mr. Ochs mistakes Mr. Cameron for his brother (the doctor). Cameron goes along with the ruse, to avoid a ticket. The policeman wants a favor in return, so Cameron is off to play doctor on his sick wife (Loretta Shea). This comedy isn't funny. Cameron is not believable as a "ladies man". The examination scene is the film's highlight. It's more interesting to watch for the make and model of the automobile used.

** The Emergency Case (1930) Arthur Hurley ~ Hugh Cameron, Al Ochs, Loretta Shea

This is a not particularly interesting early sound comedy short from Vitaphone (Warner Brothers). And like so many of the very early sound comedies, this one is pretty rough--with poor sound as well as a plot and acting that seemed a bit shaky, as the sound style hadn't yet been perfected and many comedians just didn't seem sure of themselves.

Hugh Cameron plays the brother of a doctor. The brother leaves town and Cameron is left to keep an eye on things. Well, Cameron is a speed demon and is stopped by a cop. Thinking fast, he convinces the cop that HE is a doctor and is able to get out of a ticket. But, a little later, the cop comes to him when his wife becomes ill and Cameron can't admit that he really isn't a doctor after all--with only very mildly amusing results.

The basic concept for the film is good--it's just that the jokes don't seem to come and Cameron didn't seem all that funny or talented. Like many early sound comedians, he justifiably faded into obscurity.

When the 'Genre' descriptive shows this film to be a 'Comedy/Short', I think they accidentally reversed the order. I believe it could be better described as a film that is short on comedy. But because the film clocks in at around ten minutes, sitting through it isn't all that painful. Some viewers, no doubt, will view the comedy in this short film as 'charming' and 'quaint' or some such nicety. I would tend to use other words, maybe 'disposable' and 'forgettable'. That said, if you're not too averse to watching comedy that is 'trapped in time', and can role easily with the idea that there's little or no hope for laughs, then ten minutes of this film is just the ticket for you.

If this film is not your ticket, you can always contest it, or go to movie school and have it permanently removed from your movie record.

4/10. Clark Richards