How to Sleep

One of life's imponderables. Why is it that when we have no need to get up in the morning, we can rest easy but when we do, we toss and turn until ten minutes before we need to get up? Well this quite amiable short feature allows Robert Benchley to talk us through the do's and don'ts of trying to get some sleep. Late night fridge-raiding doesn't help, nor do dripping taps, or open windows or too much bedding. Apparently, we change positions at night some fifty-five times and using some fun time-lapse photography and an entertaining narration we look at some of the comfortable, foetal and downright ridiculous postures we adopt whilst trying to keep the blood from our brains for seven or eight hours per night. There's the tiniest bit of science to this, but mainly it's quite an enjoyable laugh at behaviour that we can all recognise, and when that is put into words it renders our solo night-time acrobatics suitably ridiculous.

Robert Benchley narrates with voice over, and then acts the various scenarios in this comedy short. Here he sleep walks, tries warm mile, counts sheep and tosses and turns to try to get to sleep. All with good humor. I've always liked Benchley over some other common narrators of the short fillers for feature films in the mid-20th century. His straight-faced, somber delivery with just a slight cynicism is always worth a smile at least. Benchley made 50 shorts from 1928 to 1945 - most of them in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He visited the doctor, trained a dog, showed how to sub-let a room or apartment, how to raise a baby. Many of these "How to" briefs were hilarious renditions of how not to do something - as in "How to Take a Vacation."

How to Sleep (1935)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Robert Benchley made dozens of shorts in his career and this here is perhaps the best known. One reason is the title and subject itself but another is the fact that this was Best Short Subject at the Oscars. In the film Benchley explains that sleep comes from the blood flowing out of the brain. The comedian then explains some of the possible ways to make this happen before he turns his attention to the many positions one sleeps in at night. I'd be lying if I said this short deserved an Oscar but in its own way it's pretty clever and it certainly ranks as one of the best in the "How to..." series. I think this one benefits from the subject matter as well as some neat animation used. One example is when we see the blood leaving the brain and another happens later when Benchley is counting sheep. Neither thing is going to make you forget Walt Disney but it was a nice added touch. There are some pretty funny moments here including one where Benchley discusses the various positions someone is in while asleep and mentions that a normal person moves over fifty times a night.

It might sound like an oxymoron, but doing something as simple as going to sleep isn't always so easy. This short from the 1930s shows how even back in these times, people had problems going to bed, even if you just lay there thinking about how tired you are. In fact, this issue was probably worse in the past, as people didn't have access to white noise or other calming sounds whenever they wanted on the internet. The short starts by saying sleep is induced when blood circulation slows down in your brain. Oftentimes what happens is you'll hear something in the middle of the night and you don't know what it is. This will in turn most likely make you spiral into an array of thoughts about what the sound could have been, and those thoughts lead to others. Your mind is now wide awake and it is impossible to go back to bed. Constantly worrying about things is also a good way to keep yourself up. Some people suffer from a form of sleeplessness in which they are not only unable to fall asleep, they cannot remain in bed. It is often accompanied by feelings of suffocation, and happens if you drink too much. The only way to get around this is to not go to sleep at all. We then see a series of photographs taken during a study, where it is shown that a man changed his sleeping position over 50 times during an 8 hour period, which believe it or not is normal. In a comical time lapse, we see the guy sleeping changes positions unconsciously about every 10 or so minutes. It almost defeats the whole reason of going to bed. Lastly, we see how important it is to not become fully conscious if you get up in the middle of the night to drink something. On his way back to bed after getting some water, the man trips over his shoes and lands in the bed, causing him to become wide awake. Once you're in this mental state, you will most likely not be able to get back to bed (until 20 seconds before you need to get up for work, that is). As somebody who is in the habit of rarely willing to go to bed (since there's not enough time in a day to do everything you want), I thought this was a good short. It actually won an Oscar for best comedy short. Robert Benchley had plenty of experience with this as his contract mandated he make a bunch of shorts for Metro Goldwyn during the 30s. The part where he goes over how you are destined to fall asleep right when you're supposed to get up couldn't be more accurate, as sometimes, even going to bed early will not save you from feeling horrible in the morning. Being woken up from a deep rest early in the daytime is such an awful feeling since you're going from one extreme (total lack of senses) to another way too fast, and I never got used to it. Overall, this short shows how important sleep is, since without it, not only does your mind not match up with what you're doing, but you can't really do anything effectively. Not sleeping completely screws with your behavior and well being.

Anyone can easily relate to HOW TO SLEEP, especially if you've spent a sleepless night in a thousand different positions as illustrated by Benchley in this '35 short subject.

In this good natured spoof, he starts out trying a hot bath but never gets beyond sticking his toe in the warm water before draining the water out and deciding to go back to bed. Similarly, when he decides to get a drink of warm milk, he ends up snacking on leftovers in the refrigerator, defeating his purpose.

It goes on in this vein with water dripping from a faucet being the final annoyance that keeps him awake. Finally, he's just about to fall asleep when the alarm clock rings and it's a lost cause.

As a fellow insomniac, I found it was most amusing when he demonstrated all the sleeping positions someone goes through when they toss and turn. Funny stuff with the usual dry commentary from Benchley.