Behave Yourself!

From RKO, this minor rom-com starring Farley Granger and Shelley Winters is quite entertaining, thanks to the pleasant lead players but especially filled with great character actors, mocking the format of a crime movie. And with Archie the dog stealing scenes throughout, it represents the type of innocuous entertainment that kept fans happy during 1950s Hollywood.

One could easily imagine a straight, serious film noir with this cast, and Granger/Winters playing tough guy and femme fatale, but here they are ably involved in crazy comedy situations, intentionally goofy as sets of criminals all compete to find the cute doggy who has attached itself to Granger. Murders keep occurring and Granger's little white lie (he pretended the pooch was an anniversary present for his wife Shelley) ends up getting him into big trouble.

Elisha Cook Junior, Hans Conried and Lon Chaney Junior are among the familiar faces who are so much fun to see, even seven decades later when such obscure films show up regularly on YouTube. Influence of producer Norman Krasna is obvious here, while obscure writer-director George Beck (this was the only movie he ever directed) does a fine job keeping things moving at a brisk pace.

Pretty funny movie combining gangsters with domestic life with a cute dog thrown in. Some good jokes and one liners, some a little risqué. Lots of familiar character actors. Shelley Winters does a great job, actually seeming a lot LUCY RICARDO-ish, which is unusual as I LOVE LUCY actually premiered the same year. Don't miss the clever, closing credits "In order of their disappearance" showing some characters after they've been murdered.

Farley Granger and Shelley Winters form an unlikely couple in this screwball caper. The script was supposedly written in four days, and quite frankly, it shows. But there are some genuinely uproarious events, most of them involving William Demarest as a homicide chief. Hans Conreid appears in a heavy British accent, but he isn't nearly as funny as Demarest, though he certainly tries to be.

In fact, they all try to be funny in this offering from RKO, perhaps a bit too much. The energy, though, is good, and there is an adorable pooch named Archie whose presence is central to the plot. Near the end of the film, Granger bites Archie in an attempt to elicit laughs, proving there is such a thing as bad taste in movies. Obviously, Granger's character does not see the value in behaving himself.

One of the best supporting casts of familiar character players this side of a Frank Capra film is the best thing that Behave Yourself has going for it. When any of them are on the screen they make up for the fact that leads Farley Granger and Shelley Winters have absolutely no chemistry between them.

Behave Yourself finds Farley Granger getting adopted by Welsh terrier named Archie who follows him home. The dog has been trained as a courier among groups of gangsters, but he decides he likes Mr. Average Guy Granger instead. When he gets home the wife thinks that the terrier is an anniversary present. But now all kinds of strange and sinister people are contacting Granger about the dog. The police have taken an interest in him as well.

Any film that has Francis L. Sullivan, Sheldon Leonard, Hans Conreid, Marvin Kaplan, Lon Chaney, Jr., Elisha Cook, Jr., William Demarest, Margalo Gilmore, etc. is worth a look. But the core of the film, the leads just aren't up to the light touch this comedy needs.

I was actually surprised at how funny this comedy was--I guess I wasn't expecting much. Still, I laughed out loud several times. Shelly Winters proves grating at times with her one-note performance, but Farley Granger (looking as sexy as ever)proves to be extremely good at comedy. However, the single best performance in this movie is given by Archie, the dog, who is crucial to the plot. And he's not even listed in the credits on this website! (I actually looked the movie up on IMDb just because I wanted to see if Archie was in other films. And I've never, ever done that for a DOG before.) Elisha Cook Jr. is very welcome in a cameo role, but is not given nearly enough to do.