Dummy Ache

DUMMY ACHE is arguably the funniest short film Edgar Kennedy made in his run of short domestic comedies which ran from the early 1930's until his death in 1948.Interestingly,the film is heavily reworked from a silent comedy short,DUMB DADDIES(1928),starring Jewish comedian Max Davidson.Kennedy himself had a part in DUMB DADDIES as a policeman,but takes over the lead in the remake.Despite this being a remake of a silent comedy,the pacing does not suffer and the confusions and misunderstandings over the 'dummy' of the title are adroitly handled and are fresh and inventive.DUMB DADDIES itself is featured on one of Robert Youngson's silent film compilations of the 1960's,LAUREL & HARDY'S LAUGHING 20'S(1965),and the director,Hal Yates(not Leslie Goodwins,who does a fine job on DUMMY ACHE),would later direct many of Edgar's short comedies in the 1940's.DUMMY ACHE was nominated for an Oscar for best short of the year,but lost out to OUR GANG's BORED OF EDUCATION.

Edgar Kennedy is off to go play golf when his wife asks to borrow the car! That's no problem, he'll get a taxi - but his driver used to be a fellow member until his wife got involved in a love triangle and now he drives a cab! Nervous, he decides to double-back and check just why she (Florence Lake) wanted the car in the first place. Now we are given a clue as to the whole thing right from the get-go, so we know just what is really going on as poor old Ed gets the wrong end of the stick at just about every turn and it's fair to say that for him - if it can go wrong, it will. With the police suspecting he's a bit of a peeping Tom and with just about everyone involved in the frenzied pursuit of a body in a basket, it builds up to quite an action-packed conclusion. No, there is nothing very original here but maybe it might just suggest to married folks that a little bit of trust might not do anyone any harm.