The Boss Didn't Say Good Morning

Boss Didn't Say Good Morning, The (1937)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Carey Wilson narrates this MGM short about an office boy (Donald Haines) who has a horrible weekend just because his boss didn't say good morning. Director Tourneur is best known for films like Cat People and Night of the Demon but he got his start making these MGM shorts and that included the brilliant The Man in the Barn. I'm sure some film buffs might be attracted to this film since he directed it but they should be warned that this is all Wilson. Tourneur really doesn't have much to direct here so that beautiful style of his never comes through. The short itself is pretty much just set up for various remarks by Wilson, which was a staple of his career. The film offers up a couple laughs but it's rather confusing to know what this thing is trying for. Is it trying to say workers shouldn't worry if their boss doesn't talk to them? Is it saying bosses should always talk to their employee? I'm really not sure but it's not a horrible way to spend ten minutes.

It's possible to see director Tourneur's sensitive approach to his work in this passable Metro short about industrial relations. It is however hard to belive that Mullhall's duties as office worker sustain his spacious scrubbed up studio art department replica of a family home.

This one holds attention quite well even without synchronised speech and film making is more assured than most of these program fillers.

My summary is a bit of an overstatement, but it really isn't that far from the mark. In this MGM short, a busy and thoughtless boss ignores an employee who says 'good morning'--and this snub leads to a long, long series of calamities in this heavy-handed lesson on manners and how to treat your subservients. After the snub, the working shmoe goes home and growls at the family and makes a mess of his life--all because of one time that his boss doesn't return the greeting!! What a nut! Wouldn't it be funny if in a followup film someone forgets to say 'you're welcome' and this guy then goes off on a killing spree or if a waitress forgets a guy's coffee so he in turn invades Poland!! Talk about a heavy-handed message filled with propaganda! While the film tries to make a nice point, it really does seem a bit extreme and silly. See what you think and let me know if you get a chance. It's watchable and well made but all a bit trite.

Jack Mulhall is at work one morning when the boss comes in and strides to his office without his customary "Good Morning" to his loyal salaryman. Carey Wilson then goes on for ten minutes about Mulhall's worries that the boss is angry with him, about to fire him, frame him for drowning kittens, denounce him as a Bolshevik agent of the Yellow Peril, etc. Etc.

As I said, this goes on for ten minutes. It's clearly meant to be funny. And yet for Wilson, who was quite capable of writing (or at least collaborating, given the dozens of writers MGM employed on every script), it's a matter of "the mountain labored for months to bring forth a mouse". Wilson tended to a this sort of hysteria in his other narrated short subjects.