The Bashful Bachelor

Some big, fun names in this chapter of the radio-show-moved-to movies duo Lum and Abner. In this one, we also get Grady Sutton (was in some of the W.C. Fields films) and Zasu Pitts is "Geraldine". We also get to see Marni Nixon as "Angela Abernathy". Nixon dubbed in the singing voice for many of the singing stars of the 1950s and 1960s. In this story, the widow Abernathy (Nixon) is trolling for a husband and father for her horrible children. As usual, the guys are too busy helping out the local folks to make a profit at their own store. They end up with a horse, and then there's something about a kidnapping. None of this makes much sense, but we have fun going along for the ride. Very low key, safe, family entertainment. Also watch for larger than life Oscar O'Shea (plays the Squire); was in many of the great films, frequently background or uncredited roles. Directed by Malcom St. Clair, who also directed their "Two Weeks to Live". A fun way to knock off an hour and twenty minutes. Lots of puns, jokes, and witty thoughts.

Although to our sophisticated coastal ears Lum And Abner seem woefully out of date, back in the day they were quite the radio hit with a group of devoted listeners in the red states. A whole lot of people knew and loved the residents of Pine Ridge, Arkansas like they were their own neighbors.

Radio stars Norris Goff and Chester Lauck brought Lum And Abner to the big screen and both certainly were able to sell their rustic personas to the movie-going public, they really looked the parts they voiced on radio.

In this story Lum is having woman troubles and is looking to propose to the girl of his dreams Zasu Pitts. But he feels he's not led a heroic enough life for her to consider him. Remember this is Zasu Pitts we're talking about.

In any event after trying to make himself a hero with partner Abner and nearly getting him killed, Abner screws things up by delivering the proposal to Constance Purdy, a widow with a few extra mouths to feed. When Purdy threatens Lum with a breach of promise suit, he might be forced to marry her.

I'm not going to go into the rest. Lum And Abner I've described before as gentle rustics that the red state took to their hearts. They were the forerunners of such television shows that Paul Henning later did like Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres.

If you were a fan of those shows, you'll love Lum And Abner.

Orson Welles didn't just plunk down in a sea of stupidity. That apparent stupidity had been working for decades on key elements of reflection in narrative. Here's a great example.

It consists of dumb hee-haw jokes. The two characters who are almost the whole show are two country bumpkins in a long tradition of bumpkin humor. They do stupid things and we laugh.

Simple.

But check out a few intelligent notions lurking beneath the surface. The jokes come from two reflexive notions.

The first is that everyone gets new, faulty glasses that distort their vision. Near and far are thrown out of whack. So the difference between what they see is mapped in a way to what we see and this distance between what makes sense to us and them.

The second idea is more cinematically reflective. One of these dopes is in love. He wants to be seen as a hero. We see his imagining at the very beginning as a movie in his head. We as viewers literally enter his internal movie before we enter the "real" one. The plot of the real movie involves him trying to make a fake movie so his love will see him as a hero

These aren't turned into egghead humor. I believe it significant that the writers probably had no intellectual intent in using these devices. But they are there, both of the then reinforcing each other as if the structural diagram were drawn first.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

Better than expected. Okay, it's no knee-slapper, but the chuckles keep coming as the two cornpone dimwits manage to stumble their way from one silly misfire to the next. What grabbed me most is how un-telegenic the cast is. It sure ain't Hollywood's usual glamor crowd. Good thing there's the lovely Currie to soften my eyes after all the un-lovelies, especially Lauck (Lum) who looks like me when I forget to shave and the wife threatens to leave. Nonetheless, the pacing's good, the antics non-stop, while the train bearing down on the camera gave me a real jolt. To me, it was a fun look at the past, especially when dimwit Abner looks into the phone receiver instead of talking into it and says to a puzzled Lum, "I've got to see who I'm talking to". Top that cell-phone Hollywood.

Lum and Abner's radio show was a slice of Media Americana representing the 30s. Their radio audience was used to 15 minute bites of the happenings at the Jot-em-Down Store and this is what the picture tries to recreate. There is little plot, 5-6 mini story lines within the film, and tons of whimsy. No, it is not Gone with the Wind, or Star Wars, but it is Lum and Abner brought to the cinema screen.

Listen to a few weeks of their 15 min radio show. Corny, but.. And then the movie will make sense of what the producers/directors were trying to capture.

And they did, very well for bringing Lum and Abner to life.