Crazy House

Maybe I haven't seen enough performances by other dancers from over the decades to know otherwise, but after seeing Earl 'Snake Hips' Tucker do his routine in this comedy short (aired tonight, Friday 18-AUG-2006, 10:45 p.m. as a "One Reel Wonder" filler on the TCM Turner Classic Movies channel) I would swear that nearly all of Michael Jackson's moves first displayed during his "Thriller" days were copied from this early film.

I was astounded how amazingly similar the choreographed set of fluid moves were between what I recall seeing Michael doing for the first time years ago (and not the similar-but-jerky gyrations of the 50's Elvis/Chuck Berry-era days) and this "Snake Hips" guy I saw in tonight's short movie.

I only wish I knew the official descriptive names of each move like a dancer would so I could list them all.

So, was this old 2 minute segment the source of his inspiration and following world-wide fame? You be the judge if you are lucky enough to catch it sometime (I noticed it was not listed on the TCM schedule).

An MGM Colortone Novelty Short.

A prospective patient takes a tour of the Lame Brain Sanitarium. It only takes a few minutes in the CRAZY HOUSE to show him that everyone, staff included, is insane.

A completely inane little film, with jokes so bad it becomes quite funny. During his short stroll, Benny Rubin meets Karl Dane, Cliff Edwards & the ubiquitous Polly Moran. Dancer Snake Hips performs a remarkable routine which proves he has no bones in his body whatsoever. And ending the film with four murders is supposed to be the biggest joke of all.

It's rough to see actor Karl Dane be subjected to humiliation & ridicule, even in fun. A comic star in silent films, his thick Danish accent would soon sabotage his talkie career and within a few years he would die a suicide.

Just watched this two-strip Technicolor short as an extra on The Champ DVD (the version with Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper). Benny Rubin plays a character stuck in an asylum. Seeing him react to some crazy characters brought some interest but, otherwise, there was nothing that I thought was remotely funny. There was one pretty entertaining scene involving an African-American dancer named Earl "Snake Hips" Tucker that was fascinating to watch what with his slinking up and down or side to side to some jazz music. How the short ends was also interesting but, like I said, there wasn't anything that I thought made me laugh, just think, "So this is what they thought of?" So on that note, Crazy House was fascinating to watch, just not very entertaining.

Up until recently, I had never heard of Benny Rubin. However, I was able to download several of his RKO comedy shorts for free at archive.org--and wasn't all that impressed with his very ethnic humor. I was surprised to see only a week later that Turner Classic Movies showed one of his films--a very early color comedy from MGM. Because of my other experiences with Rubin, I set my expectations very low! Benny shows up at a sanitarium where he meets with the doctor (Vernon Dent). Lots of typical Rubin verbal humor ensues. Then, one of the doctor's assistants shows Rubin around the place. Inexplicably, the place has a radio program (????) and everyone around the place WAY overplays their crazy routines. In the middle of this goofiness, a black man does a very strange dance routines that has NOTHING to do with the film nor does the subsequent musical number--both of which are, apparently, part of the radio program.

Like the other Rubin films I saw, I just didn't like this one. Rubin's verbal schtick just didn't appeal to me as it didn't seem funny. The only things that made me laugh all happened in the final scene (which was pretty cute). Not recommended unless you adore Borscht-Belt comedy.

By the way, the color appears to be a two-color process where an orange-red strip and a green-blue strip are overlapped on a black & white strip. Cinecolor and Two-Strip Technicolor used this process and the film used the primitive Technicolor print.

Benny Rubin visits Vernon Dent in the insane asylum and they engage in some nonsensical cross-talk, followed by similar dialogue and sight gags, some of which were pulled from the abandoned THE MARCH OF TIME.

The best bit is watching Earl Tucker doing one of his 'snake hip' dances. There is also some technical interest in the use of two-strip Technicolor. The print that plays occasionally on Turner Classic Movies is very well preserved, and shows the process's ability to emulate reality.