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Red Skelton Whistling Collection

DVD

Warner Archive

1941, 42, 43 / 1:33:1 / 78, 74, 87 Min.

Starring Red Skelton, Ann Rutherford

Written by Robert MacGunigle, Nat Perrin

Cinematography by Sidney Wagner, Clyde De Vinnam, Lester White

Directed by S. Sylvan Simon

One night in 1950 during an especially frenetic episode of The Colgate Comedy Hour, Jerry Lewis stepped away from Dean Martin to address the camera point blank – “You get the idea – I’m supposed to be a 9-year-old kid.” Hardly a revelation – especially to Red Skelton, the reigning king of prepubescent horseplay.

That reign was begun in 1923 and fueled by broadly played gags that were both leering and infantile – like a burlesque version of The Bad Seed. One of Skelton’s most grating characters was a wisecracking brat called the “mean widdle kid” – wearing short pants and lace collar while delivering grown-up one-liners in baby talk he was a less feral version of Joe Besser’s...

Mickey Rooney movie schedule (Pt): TCM on August 13 See previous post: “Mickey Rooney Movies: Music and Murder.” Photo: Mickey Rooney ca. 1940. 3:00 Am Death On The Diamond (1934). Director: Edward Sedgwick. Cast: Robert Young, Madge Evans, Nat Pendleton, Mickey Rooney. Bw-71 mins. 4:15 Am A Midsummer Night’S Dream (1935). Director: Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle. Cast: James Cagney, Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland, Ross Alexander, Anita Louise, Mickey Rooney, Joe E. Brown, Victor Jory, Ian Hunter, Verree Teasdale, Jean Muir, Frank McHugh, Grant Mitchell, Hobart Cavanaugh, Dewey Robinson, Hugh Herbert, Arthur Treacher, Otis Harlan, Helen Westcott, Fred Sale, Billy Barty, Rags Ragland. Bw-143 mins. 6:45 Am A Family Affair (1936). Director: George B. Seitz. Cast: Mickey Rooney, Lionel Barrymore, Cecilia Parker, Eric Linden. Bw-69 mins. 8:00 Am Boys Town (1938). Director: Norman Taurog. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Hull, Leslie Fenton, Gene Reynolds, Edward Norris, Addison Richards, Minor Watson, Jonathan Hale,...

It’s become a cliché to say that they 'don’t make ‘em like they used to,' and I doubt that very many people have actually taken the time to check the veracity of that claim. When things like that are said, however, it’s usually in reference to comedians like Red Skelton. A physical comedian of the radio era, Skelton specialized in witty asides and weird sounds in the way that, well, most film comedians did at the time and still mostly do today. Taken together, it’s hard not to see why the Whistling films collected here (Whistling in the Dark, Whistling in Dixie, and Whistling in Brooklyn) didn’t become classics, but more interesting yet is the collective revelation that, despite the great gulf in time, things are continuing just the way that they have been for some time.

Whistling in the Dark introduces Wally Benton...