Viva la birra

I found this movie to be highly entertaining. Durante and Keaton are marvelous together. It is a shame more people don't know about this little gem. Keaton especially is so endearing and so believable. The gowns and furs on the leading lady were outstanding, the height of art deco elegance. Unrealistic for a gangster's moll, but extremely elegant. The cut of one of the dresses was just amazing. The movie moves along at a quick pace, and is just the right length. It is reminiscent of The Lavender Hill Mob, a group of endearing, comedic men trying to pull off a caper. It could also be viewed as a piece of history as it was filmed right around prohibition time.

Surely something all beer lovers would enjoy, the enthusiasm of all that beer.

... but I have to admit that Jimmy Durante is doing much of the heavy lifting, particularly in the first half. The plot revolves around a misunderstanding that Jimmy (Jimmy Durante) and Elmer (Buster Keaton) have about the nationwide vote on repealing prohibition. They think that because repeal passes at the polls that Prohibition is automatically repealed, when in fact the law is still completely in force. Thus, the next day, Jimmy has Elmer take out his life savings of ten thousand dollars as a down payment on an old repossessed brewery. The two enlist a trio of unemployed men sleeping in the brewery to help them make beer and they hang a sign outside of the brewery advertising that they are selling beer. Instead of being stampeded by the public though, it is the police that are at the door. The only thing that saves the pair from ten years in Leavenworth is that they are incompetent brewers - their beer has a head but no kick - there's not a drop of alcohol in any of it.

So now when the original trio of unemployed guys sleeping in the brewery dig up a long out-of-work master brewer Jimmy has a brainstorm. The cops already think that he and Elmer are just making "near beer" - an old Prohibition era concoction with the taste of beer minus the alcohol, so there will be no second raid. Jimmy decides to use the brewer to make real beer and real money so Elmer doesn't lose his life savings on the brewery which they have heavily mortgaged. Jimmy lies to Elmer about all of this because he knows Elmer is too honest a fellow to have anything to do with bootlegging. But it isn't long before local gangsters - real bootleggers with real guns - notice there's a down-turn in their business caused by Jimmy and Elmer's beer. A further complication - Elmer is in love from afar with the head gangster's girl.

How will all of this work out? Watch and find out.

This film moved along briskly with several very clever comic twists and turns, and although in this film Durante is Keaton's equal in the comic participation, I really couldn't say that Keaton seemed inebriated, although he did seem to have extra heavy make-up on perhaps to cover up his condition. Durante just seems to be handling the verbal end of the comedy and Keaton stays where he is most comfortable - in the physical and pantomime end of comedy. There's even a repeat of the Seven Chances avalanche at one point, with Keaton and everybody else for that matter, running for their lives not from boulders but from beer barrels.

This is far better than the tiresome "Sidewalks of New York" from two years before, and from what I've read this film did very good business at the box office. With Keaton and Durante having finally gotten comfortable in their comic partnership I'm surprised Louis B. Mayer would have fired Keaton. But then Louis B. always was a sentimental fellow - he never let profit get in the way of his animosity.

The repeal of the twelve-year dry period known as Prohibition on alcohol was looking like it would happen as the year 1933 began. Franklin D. Roosevelt had promised during his presidential campaign earlier in the fall to end the ban, in part to collect for the government much needed tax revenue on beer, wine and spirits. Once FDR won in a landslide, MGM predicted the end of bootlegging suds when it released in February 1933 its Buster Keaton comedy, "What? No Beer!"

The movie is about two enterprising guys anticipating the quick repeal of Prohibition. They end up buying a shuttered beer brewery and are ready to go into business, only to see Congress delaying its action towards repeal. Elmer Butts (Buster Keaton), who lays down the money to finance the brewery's purchase, and Jimmy Potts (Jimmy Durante), the man with the beer-making idea, get into quite a jam because of the delay. "What? No Beer!" was the third and last film MGM teamed Keaton and Durante together. The importance of the movie not only serves as a window showing the historic transformation about to take place in the liquor industry, but it was also the final feature film in the United States Keaton would appear in as the lead. It's the last picture he made for MGM, a frustrating experience for the prior-independent actor/director/writer.

Keaton's personal fortunes were sinking fast since his acrimonious divorce to his first wife, Natalie Talmadge, in 1932. His bad drinking habits created a ton of problems for him. MGM docked his salary 20% to pay for expenses it rang up when he inexcusably took time off in the middle of filming his last movie, 1932's "Speak Easily." The studio didn't renew his contract after "What! No Beer?", and other Hollywood film companies ignored him. His reputation, especially after the publicized trip to Mexico where he married his personal nurse, Mae Scriven, in a drunken stupor, caused quite a commotion. Keaton claimed he had no recollection of the trip nor the wedding to his nurse whose primary responsibility was to make sure he didn't get drunk.

Keaton's roles during his MGM days, though mostly money makers, saw his on-screen persona drift downwards from playing rock solid confident characters to becoming sheepish, jittery and clueless nobodies for others to sock him. Writes Danny Reid of Buster's part in "What? No Beer!", "Keaton's Butts never rises above the level of morose punching bag." On screen, it was obvious he was showing a level of wear and tear from the toll from drinking purportedly one bottle of whisky a day. His voice is horse, his baggy eyes belie his relatively youthful age of 38, and his energy level is low. The movie, despite a nice profit, failed to convince MGM's president Louis B. Mayer to renew his contract.

Keaton's only offers for his acting services were overseas, where he played in French and British films. He later returned to the states to be in low-budget Education Pictures and Columbia Pictures in a series of shorts. His nurse wife divorced him in 1935, and with therapy, Keaton stopped drinking for five years. In 1940 he met and married Eleanor Norris, 23 years his junior. She turned out to be a staunch supporter of his, turning both his life and career around by getting him the Columbia contract and other part-time gigs. The marriage lasted until his death in 1966 at the age of 71.

"What? No Beer!" was lambasted by film critics, although they did admit the movie had a couple of delightful scenes. In one, paralleling a sequence in his 1925 classic "Seven Chances," which had Keaton running down a hill dodging a number of boulders, here he's being chased by wooden beer barrels that he was hauling up the hill in his truck. Towards the film's conclusion, the movie has Keaton's character opening his Butt's Beer Garden the first day of legalized beer. As soon as FDR took office in March, Congress passed the act legalizing the sale of 3.2 percentage beer. The President signed the law on March 22, 1933, a month after the release of "What? No Beer!" As MGM predicted, Jimmy Durante holds a brimming glass of freshly poured beer to the camera and says, "It's your turn next, folks. It won't be long now!"

WHAT! NO BEER? (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1933), directed by Edward Sedgwick, is a prohibition-era comedy that marked the closing point to Buster Keaton's career as a star comedian for MGM. Having come a long way since becoming the studio's contract player starting with THE CAMERAMAN (1928), WHAT! NO BEER? far from being prime Keaton, ranges from disappointing to enjoyable. Of the Keaton talkies, WHAT, NO BEER? appears to be his better known movie title, particularly by beer drinkers, naturally. It also pairs Keaton once again with Jimmy Durante for the third and final time, here sharing equal billing above the title, being more of a showcase for Durante rather than Keaton himself.

The story introduces Elmer J. Butts (Buster Keaton), a taxidermist, closing shop to attend a political rally as campaigners march down the street holding a sign reading, "Vote for Horace Frisby, the People's Choice." While in attendance, Elmer is smitten by the presence of Hortence (Phyllis Barry), a companion of mob boss and bootlegger, Butch Lorado (John Miljan). Jimmy Potts (Jimmy Durante), a neighborhood barber and Elmer's best pal since babies in a cradle, returning home from a fishing trip, comes upon a get-rich-quick scheme of being the first to open a brewery and sell beer once Prohibition is repealed. Elmer finances Jimmy $10,000 to open up an abandoned brewery where the two go to work manufacturing beer with the assistance of three homeless men (Roscoe Ates, Henry Armetta and Charles Dunbar) they've found flopping about inside the building. As the election voters put an end to Prohibition, it's still not yet outlawed, causing Elmer and Jimmy to encounter further problems with authorities and rival gangsters, Lorando and Spike Moran (Edward Brophy) the latter with the intent of cutting in on their business, creating a gang war in the process.

Considering the numerous times Keaton acquired the "Elmer" name during his MGM years (1928-1933), this would be the only time he assumed the exact same name from another movie, FREE AND EASY (1930). Whether Keaton's character name of Elmer J. Butts from WHAT, NO BEER! is the same one from FREE AND EASY is uncertain. It might very well be two different characters bearing the exact same name played by the very same actor since there's really no evidence of this being a sequel. In FREE AND EASY, Keaton's Elmer is a garage owner who happens in Hollywood where he unintentionally becomes a comedy actor. In WHAT, NO BEER! he's now a taxidermist who keeps portions of his fortune inside stuffed animals. Yet, on the surface, this appears to be the same Elmer J. Butts three years later. His lovesick "Elmer" character could very much be Elmer from DOUGHBOYS (1930) or Homer in SIDEWALKS OF NEW YORK (1931). In Keaton tradition, there's a series of pratfalls to get a few laughs. Though many consider Durante a mismatch for Keaton, somehow they work favorably together here, even though Durante gets most of the attention with both his schnozzola with constant catch phase of "hotchichacha!"

With gag material few and far between, the most notable sequence turns out to be the rolling of the barrels down the hilly street, a scene reminiscent of rolling boulders from Keaton's masterpiece, SEVEN CHANCES (Metro, 1925). The boulders from the silent classic is classic Keaton. The re-enactment here makes more sense, though this new sequence, quite short, works much better in silent comedy than in sound comedy. Other minor highlights consist of Keaton and Durante's struggle at the voting booth; Keaton's day in the park with Hortense, and occasional amusing Durante one-liners. Hotchichacha!

The editing and pacing are tightly done, with certain scenes ending in sudden blackouts or gag material in abbreviated form. Released at 66 minutes, it leaves indication WHAT! NO BEER? to have been initially longer. In release form, however, it plays like an extended comedy short. Take notice that the aerial view of office workers used in one scene is one lifted from director King Vidor' THE CROWD (MGM, 1928).

Not revived in many years, WHAT! NO BEER? saw its rediscovery where this, and other classic movie titles from the MGM library, aired on Turner Network Television starting in 1988. As classic film titles slowly phased out from TNT in favor of more contemporary ones by 1991, WHAT! NO BEER? turned out to be one of its longer surviving oldies, ending its run by 1993 before becoming part of the Turner Classic Movies line-up which began in 1994. Distributed to home video, it's currently found in the DVD format. Next time it turns up on TCM, have some beer, sit back and watch the movie, compliments of Keaton and Durante. If beverage is unavailable, simply say, "What! No Beer?" (**1/2)

Keaton followers know his decision to go to MGM was a disaster artistically and the smothering of his talent is apparent in this film. In some scenes he looks like he hasn't slept in days. Stick with it though, as with any chance to glimpse comic genius, you can spot the sparks. Durante, also a unique performer, and Keaton don't make a good team. Keaton was a cool presence, far more subtle and with much more depth of characterization than other comedians of the era. Durante was a hot performer, more verbal, but with a manic physicality. At times, you worry that he's actually hurting Keaton with his constant shoving, grabbing, poking and slapping. There is a rather sexy performance from Phyllis Barry as Keaton's amour and one wonders why she didn't go on to become, as they say. Everybody works very hard which usually kills farce, but there are moments of pure zaniness usually involving barrels, and some good lines satirizing the standard gangster picture. Anyone who loves these two men, as I do, should see this, if only in giggling tribute.