The Medicine Man

The Medicine Man is a poor example of an early talkie. Slow and dumb, with a rustic cast of German-American characters DW Griffith would gag on. Jack Benny's presence makes it historically interesting, but that's about it. Benny gets off the only good line, "The New York critics have proclaimed this show the greatest amalgamation of merry making mirth provokers since Shakespeare was barred from Avon." And he mispronounces "Avon." The plot is more-or-less the same as The Music Man but without any of the music, acting or dialog. For Benny completists only.

Benny's recognizable even at this early age, however there's none of his trademark understated humor. Looks like he was intended here as a leading man; if so, he underplays perhaps to a fault. In short, the low-key no doubt worked perfectly for the comedian but not for the actor. Good thing his career converted. Then too, movie-wise, whatever spark there is comes from leading lady Bronson whose sweetness shines even as the abused daughter of brutal father Goltz who leather-straps his kids for most any misbehavior. No, this is not a comedy as the Benny name would imply. Instead he runs a traveling medicine show that comes to Bronson's small town where their mutual attraction soon develops. But what's her tyrannical father going to do since he's already picked out an over-age finance for her. That's the plot crux. Still, there're several points to note.

The character Gus, Vadim Uranoff, is a highly unusual one both in looks and behavior. As a handyman he lurks in the background agonizing over Goltz' cruelty, a strangely craggy figure too timid to interfere. Also, note that despite their suspect reputation, Benny's medicine show is made relatively law-abiding, except for the two con men who operate apart from Benny. That way the hero's shown to be morally upright despite a suspect livelihood, and thus someone qualified to identify with. Note too the surprise climax, a case where law appears to conflict with morality though the shooter is not made clear. Still, it's a surprise and a clear case of pre-Code ambiguity that would soon be disallowed by Code censors. Anyway, for fans of comedian Benny, the flick may be disappointing. Nonetheless, there are unusual compensations.

I just finished watching the Medicine man starring Jack Benny. The movie was hokey and had very poor sound quality. It also had silent film gestures. But, you have to keep in mind this movie was made shortly after talkies came on the scene. It was fun to watch as part of film history. Jack Benny is 36 years old and chasing after an 18 year old. That alone makes it worth watching. Another lecher is after the same girl and there is even a guy who only wants to see her happy. The movie was a little sad and I don't know if it was really ever funny. I'll always better remember the later Jack Benny from the 50s where he was portrayed as being cheap and and from an episode of the Lucy Show he starred on.

When watching The Medicine Man with Jack Benny one has to keep in mind that at this stage of his career Benny had not yet hit on the lovable tightwad character in which his comedy was built around. He was just another old vaudeville performer trying to make it in Hollywood at a point when studios were signing them up because of some kind of stage training. Benny's career in film was never all that significant, his primary venue was radio and later television where the tightwad image was so ingrained in your mind, it was what you expected and knew how he would react in a given situation.

That is not The Medicine Man. In this film Benny is a barker for a medicine show, not a respectable profession. But for Betty Bronson and young Billy Butts, brother and sister, he represents a way to get out from a really horrible life with a cruel and repressive father.

Jack does not really cut it as a romantic figure. But that might have not been his fault. The inevitable complaint from performers is about typecasting in a particular role. What was a complaint for most was something Benny absolutely relied on later for his comedy to work. It worked so well that even looking back at films before his hit radio show, he just can't be seen in another part.

But he'd have preferred it that way.

THE MEDICINE MAN (Tiffany Studios, 1930), directed by Scott Pembroke, is not a story about a doctor and his rare medicine discovery for some rare disease. It's actually a minor little melodrama dealing about a carnival man whose profession is never giving suckers an even break by selling tonic bottles for one dollar. While such a story might have starred such silent film comedians as W.C. Fields, Harry Langdon or Lloyd Hamilton getting a fresh start in the new medium of talking movies, THE MEDICINE MAN, in fact, gives the acting honor over to a relatively newcomer by the name of Jack Benny, the same Jack Benny of vaudeville, radio and later television. Having made his movie debut as master of ceremonies in the all-star musical, THE HOLLYWOOD REVUE OF 1929 (MGM, 1929), followed by a backstage musical, CHASING RAINBOWS (MGM, 1930), starring Bessie Love, Benny gets his first leading role not for a major studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, but one for a poverty-row one (Tiffany Studios). Though most famous for comedy, Benny, usually a straight man surrounded by comical gags, basically plays it straight in an offbeat production such as this.

The story unfolds in a small town grocery store where Mamie Goltz (Betty Bronson) and her younger brother, Buddy (Billy Butts) work for their widower father (E. Alyn Warren) helping with the stock. Also working for Goltz is a young man named Gus (Vadim Vraneff). Goltz, however, happens to be an abusive foreign-born father who whips his children whenever things don't go his way. Entering the scene is Doctor John H. Harvey (Jack Benny), a medicine man in a sideshow parading down the street in his automobile to a crowd of cheering country folks, including Mamie, with whom John, the titled medicine man, takes an interest. He later comes into the store to offer her tickets to attend his side show that night. Though Goltz does give Mamie and Buddy permission to go, after finding a record broken earlier by Buddy, as punishment, he sends them both upstairs to bed. Though they manage to sneak away the backdoor entrance to attend the show, Miss Wilson (Dorothea Wolbert) and Hattie (Caroline Rankin), a couple of snoops, notices them in attendance and do their duty by notifying their father. Miss Wilson tells on Mamie again later on when she catches her and Harvey along together kissing. After Mamie is brutally whipped by Goltz, and not wanting his daughter to have anything more to do with the medicine man, he allows to have Peter (Adolph Milner), a fellow middle-age widower with children, a man whom Mamie detests, to marry her against her will.

While THE MEDICINE MAN includes certain scenes that comes as a reminder of an old-fashioned silent melodrama, namely D.W. Griffith's BROKEN BLOSSOMS (1919) in regards of child abuse, its theme in present might have already seemed out of date even by 1930. E. Alyn Warren as an accented peaking father, is definitely no threat to Donald Crisp's brutal performance in BROKEN BLOSSOMS, though he is one father who brings fear to his children to not send him a Father's Day card, plus bitter anger to the hired hand whenever his anger gets the better of him. Granted, for a Jack Benny movie, THE MEDICINE MAN is not a comedy, which would be a disappointment to his fans. At the same time, his most avid followers would see how he performs himself in a dramatic story out of curiosity mainly because he's in it. Though some of the Jack Benny style can be found here, especially during his side show performances, most of the humor goes to Tom Dugan and George E. Stone as Benny's associates. Aside from humorously keeping a gold-digger, Hilda (Eva Novak) away from Harvey, they do a comedy take by cheating customers of their change after selling medicine bottles. His similar style of cheating suckers of their money was done better and most famously by Bud Abbott of Abbott and Costello comedy team a decade later. Dugan also gets to cheat his sucker in card games where he always comes out a ahead, maybe. Dugan and Stone briefly do a comical song that stirs few chuckles from its audience before Benny steps in with his sales pitch of his tonic bottles.

Sadly, circulating 66 minute prints contain poor visuals and occasional jump cuts indicating some minor missing material, especially during the carnival sequence. Virtually forgotten and unknown even to film scholars, regardless of some availability, including video cassette and some broadcasts on public television during the late night hours in the 1990s, THE MEDICINE MAN gets by on its own merits, especially when Jack Benny films are concerned. (** elixers)