A Night at the Movies

Husband (Robert Benchley) and wife go to the movies. They are not that excited. At the theater, they are given two tickets, one for the movie and one for a raffle to win a new car. It's a series of bad experiences.

Is this actually funny? I know Benchley was some kind of comedy star of his day. I don't really get it. It's complaining about the movie going experience as it gets played in the movie theaters. I guess that could work if done well. First, I don't like this couple. I don't care about their movie going experience. The kid is almost funny. I can see the attempt, but the result is no laughs.

Night at the Movies, A (1937)

*** (out of 4)

Oscar-nominated Robert Benchley short has a couple (Benchley, Betty Ross Clarke) going to the movie where all sorts of trouble starts. Benchley has to put up with losing his tickets, sitting behind a tale man and then getting lost while trying to find an exit. This comedy doesn't feature too many laughs but it's still highly entertaining just because it's fun seeing someone else go through various trouble that could happen at a movie theater. Benchley's style of comedy does aim for laugh-out-loud moments but instead just mild smiles seeing stuff that I'm sure we've all gone through and it's rather funny how this film, now seventy-two-years old, is still relevant today. I've seen quite a few of Benchley's shorts but I've read that none of them could compare to his comic writing but as of this date I've yet to read anything from him.

Another fun Benchley short about he and his wife going to see a movie and the various foibles they go through before and during.

As an aside, I can't imagine having a kid staring at me like that. I can laugh at it in this context, but if it really happened to me, I'd change seats way faster than he did!

Finally agreeing on which film to see, Robert Benchley and his (uncredited) wife Betty Ross Clarke set off in time to watch the feature. There is a free lottery to win a shiny new car in the foyer and that's where the tickets are accidentally placed, so ensuring the rest of their visit gets off on a typically unfortunate foot! It pans out with the usual cinema nuisances and as Benchley gets more irritated by his experience, he leaves the auditorium and struggles to find his way back into what appears to be the world's s largest circular cinema. It's an amiable critique of going to the movies, and for those of us who regularly attend them there are certainly some truths that ring true around selfishness and lack of self-awareness, but I think this rather over-contrives the scenarios and his bumbling can go wrong, will go wrong character actually began to annoy me quite quickly.

An MGM ROBERT BENCHLEY Short Subject.

Trying to quietly spend A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES isn't so simple for hapless Robert Benchley.

Nominated for the Best One-Reel Short Subject Academy Award, this was one of a series of little films to feature the gentle humor of Robert Benchley (1889-1945). Watching him deal with the unexpected difficulties of simply enjoying a movie elicits much quiet amusement.

***************************

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.