A Bundle of Bliss

I've seen a few of Andy Clyde's shorts he made for Columbia Pictures and they all suffer from a serious problem...the writing. While Clyde could be funny, he's given some nonsensical situations in "A Bundle of Bliss"...too many to make it easy to suspend disbelief.

When the film starts, Andy's wife is buying him some bagpipes. While there is no serious indication, when she lets him know she is bringing him a special gift, he automatically assumes it means she's pregnant! Did this make sense? No...but it only gets worse. Later, Andy is walking downtown and a baby carriage is pushed down the street. He chases it and soon the baby's mother and a cop assume he stole the baby. Then, about as quickly as that, the mother insists that Andy didn't do it...and the cop vows to catch Andy stealing babies! Huh??

Later, out of the blue, this baby's mother stops by Andy's house and leaves the baby on his doorstep! Huh?? Then, Andy's wife assumes (based on almost nothing) that Andy's been fooling around and the baby is his! Then, a bit later, the baby's mother and father arrive...demanding the baby...or else! This makes no sense....nor that Andy had simply dumped the baby at a Children's Aid office and ran away!! What's next? A really ridiculous ending!

Again and again in this short, people jump to conclusions, ridiculous things happen (such as a toddler at the orphanage having a hammer...and using it on Andy) and you really are left wishing that the writer really took this film more seriously! A dopey comedy...though Andy tried.

Andy Clyde wants a baby, but his marriage has produced none. When Dorothy Appleby leaves her baby in a bassinet at his door, wife Esther Howard makes him take it to the welfare people, trailed by perpetual dumb cop Fred Kelsey (he's been busted down to a beat cop in this one). Then babies start coming out of the woodwork....

Andy Clyde's Columbia shorts are a bit of an anomaly. His was the second-longest-running series for Jules White, but while Andy was a practiced fall-taker from his days at Mack Sennett's studio, his comedy pace was slower, and while there were a goodly number of slapstick gags -- again, Clyde had worked for Sennett -- the pace was slower and the attitude a lot kinder.