Beware of Redheads

From the 1930s-1950s, Leon Errol made a long string of shorts for RKO. However, I have noticed after watching a couple dozen that nearly all of them have the same basic plot. Leon either is a carouser who chases women and drinks heavily...and he doesn't want his wife to know. OR, his wife thinks he's carousing when he actually isn't. But either way, the plots involve Leon trying desperately to keep his wife from killing him. "Beware of Redheads" is pretty much what you'd expect from an Errol short!

When the story begins, a redhead (with black & white film, she actually appears to be a blonde) barges into his office and demands Leon give her back her compact, as she put it in his pocket when they were dancing the previous evening....when he was out carousing. But soon the wife arrives and Leon hides the blonde redhead. When the wife notices the compact, he tells her he bought it for her. Later, he promises to buy the redhead/blonde an identical compact to replace that one. All sorts of complications ensue....especially when the lady's husband becomes involved with the intrigue...as does Leon's cranky wife.

So is this any good or not? Well, that's not easy to say. Because it is so similar to Errol's other films, it certainly lacks originality and there's little in the way of suspense as there's a 'been there, done that' look to the short. It's well made but way too familiar to be a must-see.



By the way, I am NOT trying to be critical, but in many of the Errol films (this one especially), it's supposed to be very funny when Leon's wife beats him up and leaves him black and blue. But I am wondering how this would have worked had he beaten his wife black and blue in the shorts.

Anyone who finds Mae West's "Sex-pot-at-any-age" image fun should have no trouble sharing a similar joke with Leon Errol. Errol is unquestionably one of the funniest men to ever quip, mug & ham in front of a camera. He never fails to have (much) younger women - gorgeous women - following him around.....when he isn't busy chasing them. No one ever thinks to ask why there could possibly be so much chemistry between a demented old man and these fashion-model types. Comedy veteran Dorothy Granger, no slouch herself, often played his suspicious wife and she is in fine form here. Beware of Redheads is one of his funniest short films - full of sight gags and double-takes while bristling with wise cracks and funny situations. This viewer never misses an opportunity to see Leon in action and this is certainly a favorite. This picture is a tribute to its studio, RKO, which is certainly one of the unsung leaders in short comedy production

Through no fault of his own -- at least that's the way he tells it -- Leon Errol has to buy Myrna Dell an expensive compact that he broke at a party last night; the details are vague, as is everything except the hangover. Everything seems okay, until her husband finds out Leon's name and cites him as the co-respondent in the divorce action. This means that Leon has to get his wife, Dorothy Granger, out of town.

Fortunately, her brother, who is a medical doctor, is quite happy to help Leon out. If everyone winds up in the same room, slinging pottery and trading blows, it's hardly Leon's fault.

Every comic has his shtick, and Dorothy Granger's seems to have been slinging crockery, an art which she practiced in what seems like more than half of Leon's long-running RKO comedy series. She didn't, of course. She was in less than half of that series, and often played his secretary or a manicurist crouching atop a shower. Even when she was his wife, she didn't always bean him with a pot. Here, she hits him with a tray. It's Marc Cramer she hits with a flower pot, a beautiful, full-armed serve.