The Stupor-Visor

Stupor-Visor, The (1938)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Fair comedy short is pretty much a "battle of the sexes" debate as a husband (Jack Norton) and wife (Kitty McHugh) come up for a supervisor position and a war breaks out. She hires a women's right group to make sure the guys don't try to get away with anything. I had a decent time watching this short but at the same time you can't help but feel there was a lot more than could have been done with the material. We get a lot of simple and dated jokes like Norton saying women aren't smart enough to be in charge of anything and we get jokes with him stating that women should remain in the house. These get a very small laugh and that's it. Some of the more physical humor doesn't work too much better but these scenes include letting rats go in the women's office to scare them. Again, a small laugh but nothing big. The comic timing of Norton is all over the place and this uneven performance actually makes the film somewhat better as he comes off rather charming. McHugh fairs much better even though she doesn't get as many jokes to play with. In the end, this is a decent short that contains a few small laughs but this is certainly far from a classic.

Jack Norton made a good living playing drunks. His face, if not his name, is familiar to anyone who has seen Hollywood films from the 1930's and 1940's. Often his parts were small ones where his appearance would add to the hilarity of the scene, sort of a drunk in the crowd type scenario. When attempting to broaden his comedic approach as in this short, he usually faltered. He was an actor effective in only one role, somewhat like an early version of Foster Brooks.

In "The Stupor-Visor," Norton is pitted against his wife, played by Kitty McHugh, a lady with a lot of charm and better comic timing than Norton exhibits, when the couple suddenly find themselves running against each other as supervisor, she chosen by a women's club, he by a men's group. The script written by director Charles E. Roberts must have looked good on paper with lots of fun written in for a battle of the sexes farce. Unfortunately, the gags are ancient ones that even Milton Berle wouldn't have touched.

If you think releasing a cage full of rats in a room full of women is funny, then you'll laugh your self to death watching "The Stupor-Visor." Otherwise, beware.

I enjoyed watching this film short but also must admit that the jokes were, at times, really poorly executed because the comedy was so broad. The worst examples were the two times the rats got loose. The characters jumped and spun in manners that would have embarrassed the Three Stooges had they done this!! But, looking past this, the film was a very early film about the battle between the sexes whose plot was often revisited in TV comedies over the years (such as on the ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW among others). And the idea of a husband and wife running against each other for public office was pretty funny--especially since the husband was such an unmitigated dingaling! It was indeed cute and fun to watch but not especially deep or cerebral in its delivery!