Mr. W's Little Game

Alexander Woollcott is now remembered primarily as the inspiration for 'The Man Who Came to Dinner'. He was also the prototype for Addison DeWitt, the drama critic played by George Sanders in his Oscar-winning performance in 'All About Eve'. There was more than a trace of 'ham' in Woollcott; he starred on Broadway in a play by S.N. Behrman, and he also performed in a stage version of 'The Man Who Came to Dinner', playing the lead role that was based on himself. But the handful of films in which Woollcott appeared prove that he was no actor.

In the 1930s, Woollcott's radio commentaries were a major influence on American culture: if Woollcott praised a book, it immediately became a best-seller. If Woollcott praised an actress, her fame was assured. Woollcott also loved games and puzzles, and popularised many of these. He is credited with inventing the knock-knock joke, and may also have invented a similar game in which players are given a word and challenged to incorporate it into a complicated pun.

"Mr W's Little Game" is a short film, not precisely a comedy, intended to introduce us to the Minute Game ... a pleasant little game of the sort which used to be popular at parties. Woollcott appears here as himself, dining in a posh restaurant, with a waiter in attendance and a brassy blonde as his dinner companion. Unfortunately, all conviction that this is a 'real' situation is dispelled immediately because we recognise the 'waiter' as character actor Leo G. Carroll. Also, although Woollcott in real life had many intimate (sexless) friendships with beautiful actresses, the woman whom he is dating in this movie is -- frankly -- not a very plausible dining companion for the prissy, fastidious Woollcott.

During their rather dull dinner, Woollcott proposes a quick round of 'the Minute Game'. His blonde companion understandably asks: 'What's the Minute Game?' and Woollcott promptly replies: 'Tell you in a minute.' That's the closest thing to a laugh in this movie. Then he explains how the game works, and it really does sound like a fun game worth trying.

The Minute Game requires at least three people, who take it in turns as the player, the scorekeeper and the timekeeper. The scorekeeper calls out a letter of the alphabet, and the player then has one minute to name as many common objects (no proper names!) as he or she can think of, which begin with that letter: the scorekeeper tallies the count, and the timekeeper cuts off the player after precisely one minute. Score one point for each accepted item. For example, if you are given the letter A, you could score points for 'apple', 'ape', 'apricot' and so forth. The letters Q, X and Z are excluded as being too difficult.

There's some clever editing near the end of this short film. The patrons at neighbouring tables have overheard Woollcott's description of the rules, and now the game has spread to all the tables. In a series of quick shots, we see diners at each table playing the Minute Game, with a different letter being played at each table.

It's really too bad that simple little games of this sort (which require a bit of brainpower) are no longer popular, and that they've been replaced by complicated and expensive pocket-sized electronic games ... which require no brains at all, and which make annoying sounds in public places. I'll rate "Mr W's Little Game" 4 points out of 10. A pleasant little time-passer.

Mr. W.'s Little Game (1934)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Alexander Woollcott was the theatre critic for the New York Times and he plays host to this short from Paramount, which is mildly entertaining, although I'm really not sure how important it actually is. In the film Woollcott introduces a new game to a blonde (Marion Martin) and their waiter (Leo Carroll). The idea of the game is to give a person a letter and then see how many words they can come up with using that letter within a minute. The only rule is that it can't be a proper name. We see Woollcott play the blonde and then he plays the waiter. That's pretty much all there is to this 10-minute short. I'm sure most people will give this thing a pass but it's mildly interesting just to see the then famous critic. His performance actually wasn't too bad here and he comes off quite natural. Both Martin and Carroll are good for what they're asked to do as well. I'm not sure how long this game has been around but I remember playing it a lot when I was younger and if you're familiar with it then you might be drawn into the competitive nature of the characters in the film.

This mildly entertaining short feature is essentially a setup for the one idea of the "Little Game" that Alexander Woollcott teaches others to play. The basic idea is of some interest, but the feature as a whole is generally rather bland. It may have been possible to make it better with some snappier dialogue, but as it is, the movie relies on the idea itself and on Woollcott's sarcastic personality.

Woollcott is joined by Leo G. Carroll and Marion Martin, to whom his character teaches a simple word game called the 'Minute Game', since each player has a time limit of one minute. The movie adds some additional give-and-take amongst the characters that doesn't entirely come off, and in particular, 'Mr. W.' is unjustifiably and implausibly rude towards Martin's character.

The game itself would probably be mildly interesting to play, at least for a while. The previous reviewer on this page has given a detailed description of the game with some additional commentary. His review, though, is more interesting to read than the actual movie is to watch. Except for the game idea, this feature doesn't really go anywhere.

Alexander Woolcott is a man best known for his associations than anything else. He only appeared in four movies and wrote a few but is known because he was one of members of the so-called 'Algonquin Round Table'. This informal gathering of writers, actors, critics and other members of the intelligentsia met regularly over a period of 10 years in New York and they were known for their quick wit. It included, in addition to Woodcott, Robert Benchley, Edna Ferber, Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx and many others who had a way with words....and yes, I did say Harpo!

"Mr. W's Little Game" is Woolcott's first film appearance and it's not an especially auspicious one. While you get a bit of a feel for the man's personality, the plot of the short is slight--so slight there really isn't enough to justify even a short film. He and a lady play a word game and are then joined by the waiter (Leo G. Carroll) and little comes of all this.

Only for the extremely curious...otherwise it's a very skippable and not a very exciting short. I honestly have no idea why they even made it in the first place!