Catalina, Here I Come

Catalina, Here I Come (1927)

** (out of 4)

Weak short from Mack Sennett has a dimwitted waitress (Madeline Hurlock) being hit up on by a co-worker (Eddie Quillan) but things turn into a challenge when a gold-digger enters the picture claiming to be a master swimmer. With the upcoming Catalina Channel Swim coming up, the cafe owner (Andy Clyde) decides to make a competition out of it. CATALINA, HERE I COME is a pretty straight-forward comedy that has a couple laughs scattered around its 20-minute running time but not nearly enough to keep one entertained from start to finish. I think had this been a one-reeler then the end result would have been much better but with the lack of laughs the thing just feels three times longer than it actually is. Apparently this film was originally meant to star Harry Langdon but for whatever reason Quillan appeared instead. He actually does very little here and doesn't manage to get a single laugh. Hurlock is alright in her role but certainly nothing that's going to make you remember the film. Clyde gets a few funny moments involving a woman's legs but that's about it. The highlight of the film is when a crab ends up getting stuck to a woman's butt. Yeah, it made me laugh.

None of the reviewers so far seem to have quite caught the point of this film so I have provided a clue in my summary.

William Wrigley Jr., whose name appears so anonymously in this IMDb entry, was of course not just anybody. He was the founder of the famous Chicago chewing-gun factory. Ah yes, the fact that La Hurlock spends her entire time chewing gum is not a mere coincidence.

On January 15, 1927 Wrigley initiated the Wrigley Ocean Marathon on January 15, 1927, offering a $25,000 prize to anyone who could swim the Catalina Channel. $15,000 was offered to the first woman to finish, if the prize should be won by a man. The swim began at Isthmus Cove at 11:24 A.M. and went to the San Pedro breakwater. A rowboat accompanied each contestant, and a small fleet of powerboats remained close at hand. Of the 102 entrants, 17-year-old Canadian, George Young, won the $25,000 with a crossing time of 15 hours 44 minutes, landing at Portuguese Bend at 3:08 A.M. He was the only entrant to finish the race. Two women who failed the crossing were each given $2500. The race was broadcast from aboard the S.S. Avalon, which served as the hospital ship for the swimmers as they attempted the crossing. Today the Catalina Channel Swimming Federation governs, supports and promotes cross-channel swimming between Santa Catalina Island and the mainland. Now more than 80 years after the first channel crossing, according to the Catalina Channel Swimming Federation, more than 200 people have successfully completed their attempts.

The month following the first Wrigley Ocean Marathon, Mrs. Myrtle Huddleston became the first woman to swim between Santa Catalina Island and the mainland in February 1927.....

(source: islapedia.com) ...but there is rather awful sequel. She was bitten by a barracuda during the swim which left her partly paralysed and died just ten years later aged 39. In the film Hurlock likens the vampish Alma Bennett to "Theda Bar(r)acuda" (a play of course on the name of the most famous cinematic vamp - Theda Bara.

The fact that the film is in effect a publicity film on behalf of Wrigley's is in any case clear from the inclusion of newsreel footage of the start of the Channel-swim and the mix of film/newsreel is quite cleverly and amusingly done.

I have emphasised in several reviews of early films that it is important, when reviewing them, to bear in mind the many purposes that films served in those early days and this is another good case in point.

It seems that after Harry Langdon left Mack Sennet's studios to produce his own films, Sennett decided to cash in on his popularity and find a good use for his old scenarios by casting Eddie Quillan in a series of films as an imitation of Langdon's innocent child-man character. This is one of those films.

It's interesting and odd to see Quillan made up to look like Langdon. He seems far more made-up than Langdon ever did while wearing the same make-up. Seeing him ape Harry's vague style of physical movement becomes almost a little unsettling, because it's clearly not natural for Quillan's body. Of course, he doesn't capture the anything of the nuance of Langdon's character – which was all in his performance – and so isn't very effective. There are occasional little suggestions that he could develop an effective, forlorn little character of his own from what he is doing, but he never gets the chance to. Quillan gets surprisingly little do here for a supposed lead comic. We see him a bunch, but never get much chance to look at him – possibly to disguise that he isn't really Harry Langdon.

This film bears Mack Sennett's typical hallmark of being totally unconcerned with plot, but "Catalina Here I Come" actually seems to move rather lazily and slowly, not at Sennett's usual frenetic pace. This makes the opening scenes in the café where Harry works rather low-key and pleasant. They are punctuated with a series of silly, out-of-nowhere gags. Some of them try too hard and don't work, while some – included a bit where Eddie lets a cup of hot coffee overflow because he is so transfixed staring at a girl he likes – are rather funny.

At the end of this, though, it revealed that our story is about a swimmer in the Catalina race. This leads to an attempt to shoehorn real Catalina footage (a fact the title cards make sure to point out) together with original shots to make a funny movie, which doesn't work. There are plenty of lingering shots of the famous Sennett Bathing Beauties, which might be pleasant viewing but aren't great movie-making. They are randomly mixed with some real Catalina footage and Andy Clyde (chameleon-like as ever, he plays the café-owner and, apparently a crab-hunter) and Quillan running around and reacting. There a stunt gag of Quillan apparently running on water away from a big fish that goes on way too long – it seems like a minute.

This is an interesting curiosity that speaks more about Harry Langdon than Eddie Quillan – that he was influential enough to inspire such a blatant imitation (Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy had them as well) and that he was subtle and unique enough that he could not be effectively imitated.