Slapsie Maxie's

Slapsie Maxie's was a real nightclub owned by ex-light heavyweight boxing champ, Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom. After his boxing career ended, he entered films where he usually played good natured idiots or hired goons. I mention this because the film is supposedly set at his nightclub and the film stars the ex-champ.

Here is the story. The current boxing champ, Tiger Dorsey (the actor Frank Faylen) is accidentally knocked out by a wimpy waiter at the nightclub. To capitalize on all the attention this story got in the papers, Maxie arranges a boxing match between the waiter and the champ.

This film has one major problem...it's not the least bit funny. This is a serious problem as it was intended to be a comedy! A lot of lame laughs and a stupid boxing match don't equate to a story I could recommend to anyone....not even for someone I dislike.

Slapsie Maxie's (1939)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Pleasant two-reel comedy from Warner has former light-heavyweight champ Max "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom playing himself, fresh in retirement and running a restaurant. The new champ (Frank Faylen) comes in for dinner but accidentally gets knocked out by a dumb waiter (Johnnie Davis), which means the two must now fight it out in the ring. The waiter does have Max to train him but it's not going to be easy. I'm not going to lie and call this a great comedy, a good one or even a funny one but I will admit that it kept me entertained throughout its 17-minutes. The movie never really made me laugh because we've seen this type of story countless times before. The idea of a nobody knocking out a champ is nothing new and there's really not much of a spin to it here with the exception being that a former boxer is in the cast. Rosenbloom would end up having a pretty good career in Hollywood and he's certainly a natural. He does a pretty good job with all the dialogue and I've always enjoyed him in the films I've seen.

Former boxing champ Slapsie Maxie (Maxie Rosenbloom) owns a nightclub. Present day champ Tiger Dorsey dominates his competition. Dorsey has come to the club with his entourage after his easy fight. Johnny, the Waiter, pesters him and accidentally knocks him out. The newspapers make a meal of the story and Johnny is set to fight the champ in the ring.

This is slapstick without the charisma. Maxie is a bit stiff. He's a former boxer and that's his acting style. He reminds me of Mike Tyson without the face tattoo. I can see the charm and I'm sure people liked him as much as people today like Mike. As for Johnny, he is a fine bumbling co-star but he is pushed to be the lead. He gets to do most of the slapstick with Dorsey, the champ. In many ways, this is Maxie's movie but he's not the one doing the heavy lifting. That division is the movie's weakness. If Maxie is the star, then he should play the waiter.

At Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom's cafe, boxing champion Frank Faylen comes in and orders a drink. When waiter Johnny Davis tries to sell him some hors d'oeuvres, Faylen takes a swing at him, and clocks himself. The public demands a rematch, so Rosenbloom takes over his training.

Rosenbloom was a fighter who became a public character, and settled into the movies as a Runyonesque fellow who spouted malapropisms in movies that called for it. That's what he does in this two-reel short for Warner Brothers.

Director Noel M. Smith was one of those directors who was making a name for himself in the silent era, when talkies came in and his career flopped hard into the cheap independents in the early 1930s. He worked himself back to the Warner Brother B division, but his career stalled in the early 1940s. He died in 1955, aged 62.

I have recently started enjoying older movies of the past 100 years, and came across this interesting short on TCM. I thought it to be more like an episode from a potential TV series in the 40's or 50's. The acting, while certainly not of Oscar contention, it fun and harmless. It was interesting to see the light hearted slapstick humor used with real ex-boxers turned "actors". No big entertainment value here, except a "feel good" impression after seeing it. In the era of realism or big budget special effects of today's movies, it's nice to find comfort and refuge in mindless, light hearted slapstick shorts such as Slapsie Maxie's. Any movie that can leave me with a smile on my face at the end of watching it gets a vote from me!

8 out 10 ***