Blondie Meets the Boss

Dagwood resigns from the Dithers Construction company when Dithers wants him to postpone his long awaited vacation to close a business deal. Blondie goes to Mr. Dithers to get Dagwood his job back, but he gives her Dagwood's job thinking it would be a good joke to play on Dagwood, who is now taking Blondie's role of housekeeper. Fustrated, Dagwood goes fishing with his neighbor Marvin Williams, who really goes out to escape his nagging wife and meet girls. One of these girls, Francine Rogers, falls for Dagwood, but he darts back for home. The next day Blondie finds a camera belonging to Francine (which has an uncompromising, but innocent photo of Dagwood and Francine) and decides to have the pictures developed, but first has to close a deal with Philpot (a nightclub owner) where Blondie's sister Dot is in a jitterbug contest with Freddie Turner, and Francine works as a singer, who Dagwood has come to explain the loss of her camera. The fireworks fly (literaly). One of the best entries in the series with slapstick galore (Dagwood's jitterbugging, Daisy "dancing", etc.) and overall brilliance from every angle. The script is able to seamlessly combine all the different stories for the various characters and have them come together at the end. Simms has plenty of smart one liners which are said expertly by the four year old. Rating, 10.

Dagwood has a much needed vacation coming up, but Mr. Dithers has other plans for Dag. He has to leave town, and wants Dagwood to run the office for him. But Dagwood says he'll resign first. Dithers quickly accepts his resignation. Now Dags has to find a way to tell Blondie. He,does, so Blondie decides to talk to Dithers. Dagwood is very upset, and takes advice from his neighbor, and goes fishing with him. Turns out his neighbor "goes fishing" only to meet his girlfriend. And he has a girl for Dagwood. Eventually, Dagwood goes back home around 2am. Blondie found out about her neighbor's so called fishing trip, and tells Dagwood if she ever found out the he had another girl, she might feel compelled to kill. By drowning Baby Dumpling and offing her self. So Blondie had a very dark side to her that shocked me. This isn't a spoiler, I don't think. I just wanted to reveal Blondie psychotic side.

This film is even funnier and more delightful than the first one. Daisy the Dog, Baby Dumpling, and his playmate from next door, Alvin Fuddle, get up to even better hijinks and say even cuter things, and the gags and sight-gags fly thick and fast. Jonathan Hale, who plays Dagwood's boss J. C. Dithers, the head of Dithers Construction Company, is here brought into the story as more of a character in this film, and he will remain that way for the rest of the long series. Dagwood and Blondie are all set to have their first holiday in two years, when the horrid Dithers orders Dagwood to cancel it and stay behind to help him land a contract. Dagwood resigns in protest. When he gets home, Blondie decides to take matters into her own hands, and goes to see Dithers. She ends up doing the job for Dagwood, though it all goes horribly wrong without her knowledge and the situation is only saved inadvertently by Dagwood's congenital idiocy. As usual, Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake are marvellous in their roles, and Larry Simms as Baby Dumpling and Danny Mummert as Alvin are just as astonishing as ever. While Blondie is taking his place in his office, Dagwood is left at home being a house husband and gets bored, so he is persuaded by Alvin's father to go on a fishing trip, where he meets a nightclub singer named Francine Rogers, which will lead to multiple complications and misunderstandings for the rest of the film, with Blondie getting jealous and threatening divorce. The plot is really too complicated to summarize, but each new twist is funnier than the last. Daisy has plenty of occasions to raise her ears in shock and dismay, Baby Dumpling gets lots of opportunities to show that he, aged five, is wiser than his parents, Blondie gets to prove she can do her husband's job better than he can, Dagwood wins a dance context by mistake, and countless mishaps, accidents, misunderstandings, and unfortunate coincidences get to mount up into a mountain a fun. This film is particularly notable for having several top jitterbug dancers of the period do some astonishing dance routines, which are classics of the genre and deserve to be seen by period dance afficionadoes.

This is the second Blondie movie in a series. Dagwood resigns from his job after Mr. Dithers tells him he can't take his vacation yet because of something he wants him to do. Blondie ends up taking her hubby's place while Dag does her household chores. But he then decides to go fishing with a neighbor friend who takes a couple of girls with him. Also, Blondie's sister Dot comes in with a boyfriend who she's trying to enter a jitterbug contest with. I'll stop there and just say most of what happens was quite funny if also a bit silly part of the time. Arthur Lake does some good physical stuff while Penny Singleton does a funny look when she gets jealous. Overall, Blondie Meets the Boss was a funny enough second entry. P.S. If you know the original Blondie comic strip's history, you may be confused by seeing her have a sibling since no such character existed in Chic Young's panels nor was Blondie's maiden surname Miller, it was Boopadoop. Incidentally, this was Dorothy Moore's second and last appearance as Dot. If you're fans of W.C. Fields, you may have been amused by the appearances of George Chandler-a laundryman here-best known as the son in Fatal Glass of Beer and of Grady Sutton-a camera clerk here-who appeared in quite a few of Fields' films, the last being The Bank Dick. Oh, and I'm familiar with bandleader Skinnay Ennis-who sings in the nightclub sequence-from his regular radio spots on Bob Hope's and Abbott & Costello's shows. And one of the story writers was Kay Van Ripper, who was also writing the early Judge Hardy's Family entries at M-G-M.

I have always been a fan of the Blondie comics, even to this day, but some of the movies have been duds. In this one, however, I found myself laughing uncontrollably at times, with the highlight being Dagwood's (Arthur Lake's) accidentally stumbling into a jitterbug dance contest with Dorothy Moore (playing Blondie's sister). His uncoordinated movements while slipping and trying to regain his balance was masterfully done and simply hilarious. It's easily worth the price of admission for this sequence alone.