Art Trouble

Brothers Jimmy Stewart and Don Tomkins don't want to go to Paris where they'll have to paint pictures of nekkid women and stay up all night drinking champagne. They want to go to Woonsocket and study trigonometry. But their parents insist. So they hire house painters Shemp Howard and Harry Gribbon to go in their place and take the money and studio ma and pa are paying for.

That pretty much sets the tone for the entire short. Howard is pretty good, Gribbon isn't, and it's Jimmy Stewart's first screen appearance.

With the collapse of the specialty short comedy producers like Educational, the majors were expanding their two-reel production. Warner Brothers' push into the field would end soon after this.

The 26 year old James Stewart made his uncredited screen debut in this film having previously graduated from university and exploited the stage circuit. He was obviously an intelligent man with a distinctively American voice which kind of carved him out as an all-American hero.

Harry Gribbon and Shemp Howard star in this one as a couple of painters...and I am not talking about artists but guys who paint boats, buildings and the like. The film begins with the men using some WEIRD paint...that comes out in checkered patterns. The scene then cuts to some fancy society home. Two young men (one is Jimmy Stewart in his first film) are being told by their parents that the pair MUST got to Paris to live the bohemian life of painters and chase women. While you'd think they'd be thrilled with this, the brothers want to do post-graduate work in trigonometry! So, they pay the two painters (assuming they are the artistic variety) to take their place in Paris--living off the parents' money and carousing. The only caveat is that they are supposed to mail letters regularly to the parents telling them about their exploits in Paris...while pretending to be the brothers. Naturally the painters make a mess of everything...and it's best you just see it for yourself to see how.

This is not exactly a brilliant comedy but it has quite a few clever moments. And, for Stewart lovers, it certainly is worth seeing as well. Overall, enjoyable.

By the way, this short came out a month before the new, toughened Production Code was put into effect. As a result of this, some risqué Pre-Code humor can be found here which simply would have been edited out or softened had the film debuted just a bit later.

Pretty impressive, for a short talkie! SO many huge names in here. Even jimmy stewart's first appearance. Shemp howard. Marjorie main and mary wickes, according to the imdb cast list. Main was probably best known for "the women" and ma kettle. And mary wickes was a fun supporting character in "man who came to dinner". Harry gribbon must have been someone, since he started in the early days of silents. The story itself is silly... who wouldn't take a free trip to paris, with the lodging paid?? It's mostly a bunch of vaudeville bits, stapled together for a twenty minute tale. And it's in surprisingly good condition. Some funny bits. Not every joke is a winner. Pause for laughter. Directed by ralph staub, who seems to have spent most of his thirty years making shorts.

This is noted as the first filmed role for James Stewart, although he is not listed among the credits of this short film.

James Stewart plays one of two brothers who are ordered by their wealthy parents to go to Paris and become famous artists. They don't want to go to Paris with its atmosphere and beautiful girls and champagne. They prefer to stay in America and take a post-graduate course in trigonometry. So the brothers get a couple of painters - they paint ships not portraits - to go in their place and give them a series of letters to periodically mail back from France to their parents, so they'll think that they are there. But then the painters get tired of mailing these letters back individually and decide to mail them all at the same time, alerting the parents back home that something is up.

The two painters are played by Harry Gribbon and Shemp Howard, after he was ejected from The Three Stooges by Ted Healy. Stewart is only in a couple of scenes, and he was paid 50 dollars for his work. There is lots of filler in this short. There is a segment in the beginning about Gribbon and Howard being painters of the ships on "The Checkered Line" with them painting a ship with checkered paint. In France, there is a segment with a long scene concerning the Apache Dance, where the man throws the woman about during the dance. It goes on too long and is tedious in the end.

I'd recommend this mainly to see Stewart in his very first filmed role, but the rest of the short is pleasant enough. And if you ever wanted to see James Stewart roughed up by one of the Three Stooges, this is your opportunity.