You're Next!

From 1934-1940, character actor Walter Catlett made a series of two-reel comedies for Columbia Pictures. Catlett is best known for the voice of Honest John Fox in Walt Disney's Pinocchio, but his Columbia output was mostly weak, in terms of material, but one 1940 effort You're Next!, co-starring Monte Collins does flow along nicely thanks to Del Lord's creative direction.

Catlett and Collins are two bumbling private eyes who are hired to come to the aid of a nervous millionaire who is being threatened by a mad scientist. Of course, the millionaire is kidnapped by him and the two men, along with the millionaire's loyal servant, played by the always reliable Dudley Dickerson, must rescue him at the scientist's house, where they run afoul of trap doors, spooky objects, and a bloodthirsty gorilla. One wonders if this would have worked as a Three Stooges short, but Catlett and Collins handle the material nicely.

A mad scientist wants to turn a millionaire into an ape. Can detective Walter Catlett avoid a similar simian fate when the mad scientist tells him "YOU'RE NEXT"

Bad shorts even happened to Laurel & Hardy, so one can't get too upset over this collection of unfunny jokes. The racist bits are worse than typical for the 40s, though, which argues that obscurity is the best fate for this. Catlett does show he is better than the material -- acting his part like he's in His Girl Friday -- but he is let down by the whole cheapness of the Columbia short subject milieu. I'm not sure why Del Lord fell so far off form for this, though.

For short subject fans only.

Although the Three Stooges made a lot of comedy shorts for Columbia Pictures, the studio also made many hundreds of comedy shorts during this same era (roughly 1934-1956) with many other comedians, such as Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, Charley Chase and more. In "You're Next!", Columbia paired Walter Catlett and Monte Collins and put them into a plot like you'd expect from the Stooges.

Slocum and Pruitt have a detective agency. They're called to protect a rich guy (Roscoe Ates) from kidnappers. However, they do nothing to stop it from occurring (since they are idiots) and soon their client is in the hands of a madman who wants to turn him into a gorilla! Later, a gorilla appears and the duo spend most of the film running away and acting scared.

The plot involves a sick guy trying to turn people into gorillas. Do I really need to say more than that?! After all, the idea is totally stupid and the film doesn't even have a single decent laugh.