So This Is Washington

Norris Goff and Chester Lauck were a pair of vaudevillians who when that medium died went into radio were their hillbilly act and characters of Lum and Abner. The two of them came from a small town, Waters, Arkansas and were lifetime friends as well as partners. Like Amos and Andy their voices created all the characters used on the radio show. Starting out locally, they eventually appeared on all of the radio networks from 1932 to 1954. As you can imagine, there appeal was to what we would now call red state America.

They did a lot better than Amos and Andy for posterity's sake. They were from the culture that they spoofed so no offense was taken then or now. Lum and Abner operated the Jot Em Down General Store in Pine Ridge Arkansas and got into many adventures with the various town characters whose voices Goff and Lauck did. They were a pair of gentle rustics who an unseen providential hand got out of trouble every week.

Goff and Lauck did several films with their Lum and Abner characters. In this one, So This Is Washington, they're ready to help in the war effort. Especially after one of FDR's dollar a year men broadcasts from the capital asking the common man to contribute whatever new ideas he can for the war effort.

That man is Alan Mowbray who then is deluged with crackpots of all kinds with cockamamie inventions to help beat the Axis. Abner himself thinks he has something with his homemade licorice which both think could be used as synthetic rubber. They travel to Washington to peddle the idea.

There's no real plot to So This Is Washington. The film is just 64 minutes of cracker barrel philosophy and homespun humor. A lot of the jokes are terribly dated about war time rationing, women taking the place of men in the work force, and the very real need which was solved for synthetic rubber because the Japanese were sitting on most of the world's real supply. That need was solved, but not with homemade licorice.

At one point the two men, take a load off their feet in Jackson Park where they give some Pine Ridge type common sense advice to passing legislators and bureaucrats. In doing so they become minor celebrities. Today's audience wouldn't get the whole gist of the joke if they were not familiar with Bernard Baruch who was an elder statesmen and financier from before World War I who was known for dispensing his wisdom from a Central Park Bench in New York City. A whole lot of the humor in So This Is Washington is similarly dated.

Yet there is a certain sweetness in the sincerity of the gentle homespun humor that is Lum and Abner. Goff and Lauck's hometown of Waters, Arkansas changed its name to Pine Ridge in honor of them. Talk about life imitating art.

Though the film is more historical than hysterical, today's audiences might get a few laughs from it though a history the times nearby might help.

The hayseed humor may have dated, but the time capsule remains. Check out the first 10 minutes in the Jot 'em Down general store. They'll tell you a lot about wartime restrictions and rationing and the kind of small town life that used to be the backbone of the nation. No malls or Walmarts then. Daily business was conducted on a personal level with friends and neighbors, and when a boy got drafted, the board answered to the parents. Lum and Abner amount to humorous versions of that inoffensive small town personality so familiar then to so many.

Sending the pair to Washington suggests two important signs of the time. First, that the high-powered Brain Trust and Dollar-a-Year men of the Roosevelt administration still needed common-sense guidance from small town America. The big boys may have smarts, but do they have the necessary sense to go with it. That was supposed to be the monopoly of Main Street America and I'm sure the point resonated with audiences of the time. The second point was that the war effort required citizen cooperation with a newly strengthened and centralized federal government. To the localism of rural regions, Washington was a distant and not very important factor in their lives. Thus, mobilizing small towns required some re- orientation. That's really why the pair is shown visiting the national monuments (poorly done process shots). The first point may have faded over time, but the second certainly hasn't.

The movie itself is a cheaply made independent production at a time when the public hardly cared as long as the horrors of war could be escaped for a while. I still get a chuckle out of hayseed Abner playing the jive talking hep-cat after a disorienting hit on the head. Yes, the film is now little more than a strange and distant oddity. But for those wanting some insight into a rural America of yesteryear and changing relations with the nation's capital, this is a 60-minute opportunity.

This 64 minute shortie is a collection of jokes and sight gags by Chester Lauck (Lum) and Norris Goff (Abner). They had made about eight films together, as a follow-up to their radio shows. "So This is Washington" was actually nominated for Best Sound Recording in 1944, but lost to "This Land is Mine". Small-town shopkeepers Lum & Abner think they have invented something that will help the war effort, and they rush off to offer their support. Of course they find out that things aren't easy in the big city. Kind of a Beverly Hillbillies during war-time deal... and one of the actors Alan Mowbray (plays Chester Marshall in So This is...) was ON the Beverly Hillbillies in 1968. No real big faces in this one, but all around fun, and safe for the whole family. Directed by Ray McCarey, who died quite young at 44.

I did not grow up in the 1943, when this film was made, nor am I a student of the history of the times, but SO THIS IS WASHINGTON was an endearingly funny movie. I understand why some would think this film is not for everyone. It's not. But there are many of us who adore comedies from this era, who know how to enjoy a film in its historical context, and who don't ask those who wrote, directed, or acted in the film to think like us.

This was a popular radio show brought to the screen, but I did not know this when I first saw it on TCM. It uses familiar comedy devices: small town life vs. big city folks, absurd inventions by odd inventors, memory loss, and government as a incomprehensible behemoth. Lum and Abner, the proprietors of a general store in a small town, become the toast of a big city by being their small town selves.

It is not overly complex, it has a message ideal for unity during wartime, and it lasts only an hour. That's plenty of time for this particular adventure, but it left my wife and me curious for more. This one was entertaining enough for us to purchase three Lum and Abner titles.

If you love comedies from this era, you should enjoy this one. A lot.

If you grew up in the 30's when there was no TV but only RADIO, you would have found this film very entertaining. Chester Lauck was one of the veteran stars of this film on the "Lum & Abner" show on CBS, NBC in the good Old Radio Days. This film enabled the public to actually view their radio stars on the big screen and their comedy made this film a great success. The big events in the film happened in the local general store in the STICKS (or rural country) and the artificial invention for rubber is discovered and the local town decides to bring their invention to Washington, D.C., where this discovery can be utilized in WW II. This is truly a great Classic film and can only be enjoyed by a select few from the Past.