Hurry, Charlie, Hurry

Banker Leon Errol goes on a fishing vacation when everyone in town thinks he is in Washington, meeting with the Vice-President. While on vacation, he is made a blood brother of the local tribe. He returns home to discover that the Vice-President is coming to town to talk about Indians, his daughter, Mildred Coles, wants to elope with Kenneth Howell, his snobby wife has imported a loser as a house guest and the Indians have come to visit.

It's directed by Charles E. Roberts, the frequent director of Leon's RKO shorts, and the writers have similar credits. That may be why this studio-bound production feels like two or three Leon Errol shorts squashed together. There is a serious subplot dealing with Indian rights. However, while Mr. Errol's mugging is very funny when he is in a supporting role, or in a high-speed two-reeler, at 65 minutes, it feels forced and contrived.

It's all a matter of taste, and there's little to complain about the technical side of the production, with Nick Musuraca behind the camera; he had entered the industry by being the chauffeur to J. Stuart Blackton. There are also a plethora of fine silent comics in small bit, making the most of their roles. Yet, as William Wyler, who knew how to make great movies, said: "It's 80% script and 20% you get great actors. There's nothing else to it." The great script isn't here.

Besides his RKO two reelers and the "Mexican Spitfire" series, Leon Errol starred in a group of short B features for RKO in the late 1930s and 1940s. This one moves a little faster than most of the others which take about 40 minutes to set up the chase and 20 minutes to execute the slapstick. In this feature, Leon escapes his wife (Isn't that always the case with Leon!) by telling her that he is meeting with the Vice-President when he intends to go on a fishing trip. Complications set in when the Native Americans he meets on his fishing trip come to visit him. The Natives are portrayed as complete savages. They will be arrested for leaving the reservation. They eat peanuts with the shells. The reactions of the "white" people to them is unbelievably racist. However, in the middle of the film, as a policeman tries to arrest them, Leon tries to explain that the "white" men stole the land from these poor people. Bravo, Leon! So the film makers were aware of our racist attitudes and allowed Leon to state this in a subtle way. The 1940s were a different time and I do not condemn the screenwriters for this piece. It was accepted at the time. I am only glad that they showed their intelligence by giving Leon that one special line of dialogue.

The supporting players in the film are nothing to write home about. It is all Leon. Grady Sutton, a marvelous comic actor, has a very short cameo as a tailor and is as funny as always. The others let Leon carry the ball throughout the movie.

This is a very busy very short feature that has absolutely nobody named Charlie in it but it does hurry. Leon Errol plays Daniel Jennings Boone, president of a local bank who seems to hate his job and is a henpecked husband. . But then his daughter is afraid of her mother (Cecil Cunningham) too. She wants to elope with the local bread man back when they delivered right to your doorstep. The guy has a company of his own and it is expanding, but both the daughter and Daniel are afraid to cross mom on the subject of her marriage since mom is an insufferable snob. The breadman isn't good enough for her daughter as far as the mother is concerned, and she is trying to couple her daughter up with somebody with blue blood, but he looks like he has a case of all body asthma and has the personality of a stop sign.

Daniel's problems begin when he arranges a two week vacation from the wife and the bank by claiming that the VP wants his advice in Washington, DC. Instead he steals away to Washington, Oklahoma for some fishing with an old friend. He thinks he has gotten away with it, except when he returns the whole town thinks Daniel knows the VP and the VP is coming to town. Also, he told some Native Americans he met in Oklahoma to stop by anytime and they actually do!

The racism against the Natives - like them having to go back to the reservation or there will be big trouble, as though this is 1870 and they are going to scalp someone - made me wince until Daniel finally tells everybody off about how the white man stole their land in the first place! Quite unexpected material for 1941.

If you like Leon Errol you'll probably like this one. If you've never seen him, Leon is like a cross between the constantly flustered Frank Morgan and the more modern Rodney Dangerfield who could never get any respect. Even if you've never seen Errol before I think you'd find this one mildly amusing.

If they paid their actors little, they paid their writers less. I never head such tripe as they had the the American Indians speaking. No wonder white people back then thought American Indians were below them. What American Indians. None of the actors were actually Native Americans. No wonder RKO was known for it's B movies. It was tun as a business rather than a movie business.