The Lunkhead

The Lunkhead is a 1929 Mack Sennett "all talking" comedy short. The plot involves a love story with a lunkhead farmer (Harry Gribbon), a beautiful girl who loves someone else (Thelma Hill), and her father (Andy Clyde). It got good reviews with The Film Daily saying "Gribbon and Clyde are a fine team and in this they have plenty to work with." Sadly it seems this movie is now lost.

Thelma Hill was one of Sennett's bathing beauties and she became a popular comedic actress. Tragically she became an alcoholic and died very young in 1938.

"The Lunkhead" is a very early sound film and like so many movies from this era, the quality of the print is suspect. In the early portions of the short, the sound quality is poor and varies tremendously throughout the film. There are some portions where the images have deteriorated...a common problem with old nitrate film stock.

Ed Martin (Andy Clyde) is upset because the man his daughter loves is someone he doesn't approve of nor would want as a son-in-law. However, he inexplicably wants Gilbert (Harry Gribbon), a real lunkhead, to marry her instead. Fortunately, she doesn't want Gilbert.

Like many early sound films, there is a huge reliance on dialog as opposed to action. As such, the story does seem a bit talky at times and could have used a bitmore action.

So is it worth seeing? Well, the print is a mess but it is watchable. As for the story, it is okay but could have used more laughs. Not bad, mind you, but also not all that funny.

By the way, I've seen Gribbon in a bunch of comedies and generally he wasn't funny. As for Andy Clyde, my impressions of him as a comic are similar except he was WONDERFUL when he became Hopalong Cassidy's sidekick in the 1940s....where he was really in his element.

Andy Clyde wants to marry daughter Thelma Hill to Harry Gribbon. She doesn't want to, as would anyone, so her friends work with her to make him look bad.

Mack Sennett made this story -- Father wants daughter to marry a man, but she loves another -- many time, considering it a dependable plot. Indeed, it was, but the results varied depending on how it was written and who played the roles. Clyde, as always, is good and everyone els eis all right, but Gribbon plays it so broadly that you wonder how the situation arose in the first place; what father would want his daughter to marry this lunkhead?

This being early days for Sennett and sound, there are some sound-based gags her,e as when Gribbon thinks he has been shot. They work pretty well.