Blondie

Chic Young's popular comic strip Blondie made it's debut with this film for Columbia Pictures. For a dozen years Columbia put out the Blondie series of films starring Arthur Lake and Penny Singleton as Dagwood and Blondie. It might have kept going but for television and the fact that Penny Singleton had blacklist problems. Arthur Lake was forever typecast as Dagwood after this series, maybe the worst case of typecasting ever as no one could see him as anything else.

The usual problems of the Bumsteads both domestic and on the job for Dagwood are here from the comic strip. In this film Blondie buys a whole new living room set to surprise Dagwood on their fifth anniversary. In the meantime Dagwood wants to get ahead at the J.C.Dithers construction company and Jonathan Hale as Mr. Dithers tells him to land a big account with Gene Lockhart. Dagwood meets Lockhart without knowing who he is and from these two situations the whole movie develops. It's much too complicated to tell if further.

This was a nice debut for the series which was a money maker for Columbia while it lasted.

During the wee late night hours while watching tv during the 1980's, I discovered the "Blondie" film series. They were so funny that a good laugh could help me sleep. I tried to watch them every week they were on, however a man must have his sleep. I never forgot how much I enjoyed the films I saw, so recently I purchased the first six in the series from Amazon.com. There are 28 films in all spanning from 1938 to 1950. Penny Singleton (as "Blondie Bumstead"), Arthur Lake (as "Dagwood Bumstead") and Larry Simms (as "Baby Dumpling"/Dagwood/"Alexander") were in all the films for 12 years. Larry Simms was in "Blondie" at the age of 3 until he was 15. We literally saw him grow up to be a fine teenage boy. He is retired now and has not been in the acting business for quite some time. Penny Singleton is still alive at the nice age of 94. Her latest project was doing the voice of "Jane Jetson" in Jetsons: The Movie (1990). Arthur Lake however is no longer with us. Each film begins with a short preview of a few scenes in the film, then followed by the hilarious postman mishap which becomes the start of the film. That is Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake singing that catchy tune. The Blondie films are warm to the heart and very enjoyable to see and I highly recommend seeing them. Each film is somewhat a continuation of the prior film. And they are fine for children to see. The next film in the series is BLONDIE MEETS THE BOSS.

I read in "Guinness World Records" that the original "Blondie" movie was the world record holder for most sequels and there were over two dozen of them! That was what really attracted me to this movie in the first place. I think that by now, the standards have probably changed. It's simply a long running film series, like Godzilla or James Bond. I genuinely liked this movie, but not enough to see all of the followups. The plot is pretty basic, with Dagwood trying to get a raise to do something special for his and Blondie's wedding anniversary. He seems like he gets fired or threatened to, constantly.

I am not much of a fan of the "Blondie" comic. Then again, newspaper comics themselves have mostly declined. I admit to being unfamiliar with their kid, Baby Dumpling. He probably grew up to become one of the teenagers that now appears in the comic. The acting in this is pretty good and the jokes are quite funny. My favorite is probably the bit with the weighing machine. The comic strip was bright and colorful, so it was pretty weird to see it in black and white, but it still worked. When you have a slice of life story like this, it's hard to get that much story. This still worked pretty well. It's certainly light years ahead of those awful live-action Marmaduke and Garfield movies.

I hesitate to watch any of the other movies because I would probably go insane from their sheer number. Besides, none of them are really significant in any way apart from this. I'm just reviewing this and I'll be done with it. It seems to be off to a good start. Must be to get so many followups! ***.

I have seen this and countless others in the series and always beat a path to the TV if I know any one them is on. AMC, in their less commercial era showed these every Sunday morning. Please watch these films if you have the opportunity. They are great, clean, non-violent family fun. And they work wonderfully well today.

On the day of his fifth wedding anniversary, Dagwood is in trouble needing to raise $563 to pay back on an endorsement check that went sour to a woman named Elsie. Dithers (Dagwood's boss) says he will give Dagwood $600 as a bonus (plus a $10 raise that Blondie has been wanting Dagwood to get) if he can secure the contract from developer C.P. Hazlip. Hazlip, not wanting to see any salesmen such as Dagwood, becomes friends with Dagwood while indulging in one of their hobbies, tinkering (in this case a vacuum). Blondie becomes jealous when a man from the finance company comes to the house about "Elsie's note". Blondie suspects her husband is having an affair and confirms her suspicions when she finds Dagwood at Hazlip's hotel with his daughter Elsie. Dithers believes Dagwood is not getting any headway with the Hazlip deal so he fires him (not the first or last time this will happen) and Dagwood is further in Daisy's doghouse when Blondie, her mother and sister believe he is unfaithful. What is our lovable protagonist to do? I haven't seen any other films in the Blondie series, but it is easy to tell this is a standout film. Singleton and Lake are the perfect people to play the lead roles and Simms is adorable as Baby Dumpling. The script has numerous funny scenes, many of which are humorous touches to the film that don't develop the scenario further, but that is no big deal here. At the beginning of the film, the scenes alternating with Dagwood and Blondie didn't seem that smooth, but that may be the only flaw of the film. Rating, 9.