Pistol Packin' Nitwits

"Pistol Packin' Nitwits" marks the last comedy short El Brendel and Harry Langdon made for Columbia Pictures. Now I don't consider this to be tragic, as BOTH men made some god-awful shorts at this studio...and Langdon's death soon after finishing this film put an end to his string of forgettable shorts. As for Brendel, he was fired at about the same time and later found a niche working on television.

In this story, El and Harry go to work for Queenie, a lady who owns a bar in an old west town. She's had trouble with some of the guys who come to the bar and she hires to two...even though they are complete pipsqueaks.

You know this is not much of a comedy when the best moment is a dancing number with El and Harry! Overall, very few laughs and a film that makes you wonder who thought any of this would be funny.

Pistol Packin' Nitwits was the final Columbia short to both star El Brendel and Harry Langdon and it's essentially a western-themed comedy with either star barely hitting the mark. Brendel and Langdon are traveling medicine men who help a spitfire bar owner Christine McIntyre defend it from a gang of outlaws, as well as meeting B-western star Brad King as the indestructable hero of the film. Harry Edwards, who was notorious for being the unit's worst director, was fired midway through production and fledgling sound mixer Edward Bernds (who also shared story credit with Langdon) was hired to direct additional scenes, but he later admitted he was not proud of the finished product and dubbed it "a Columbia mistake", but Bernds would direct a number of entertaining Columbia two-reelers for the next seven years.

This is the infamous short which is supposed to have killed Langdon: he had a cerebral hemorrhage and died soon after it was finished. Since it was 1: a Columbia short and 2: costarred El Brendel, who reasonably held the record of World's Worst Comic Actor between Al Joy -- who, by the way, turned out shorts that were no worse than your average 1970s situation comedy: not great perhaps, but relatively painless to anyone who has ever sat through a Brady Bunch marathon -- and Paulie Shore, it is supposed to be an awful short.

Think again. It is actually a pretty good short. True, it does have the usual Columbia monstrosities, but it also has a funny story, some good comic acting, Christina McIntyre gets to sing for a change and Harry and El do a fine little dance-and-piano number.

Shed no tears for Harry. He worked steadily in the movies, did some interesting work -- his PRC features are very funny -- and he lived a very comfortable life, just as Buster Keaton did in his last decade. He went out in harness turning out a good comedy. There's nothing wrong with that, and this one is a bit of all right too.