Straight Place and Show

All comedy is a matter of individual taste, and the Ritz Brothers are no exception. They are the class cut ups, mugging and and crossing eyeballs, shouting and always on stage, minor variations on each other, as opposed to the Marx Brothers, who had clearly differentiated personalities -- except for Zeppo, who had none -- and actually had a intellectual side to them.

In any case, the question of whether you will like this movie depends on if you like the Ritz Brothers. Richard Arlen is present for standard leading-man action, and Ethel Merman to sing a few songs, but this movie is about the Ritz Brothers mugging it up over a racehorse. If you like them, go to it. If you dislike them, avoid it. If you don't know who they are, give it a try.

I should warn you up front....I have seen and reviewed several other Ritz Brothers movies and have hated them all. I have found the boys to be incredibly grating...and probably the most unlikable American comedy team. But, I try to be fair and when TCM showed three in a row, I watched them all....hoping, perhaps, that they actually DID make a few good comedies. I tried this with Wheeler & Woolsey. I initially disliked the team but I did eventually find a few of their films that I really liked. Well, this movie surprised me! After all, I really disliked the Ritz Brothers but in this one they weren't bad...and it's a rare case where one of the co-stars is the annoying one!!

When this film begins, Denny (Richard Arlen) and Barbara (Phyllis Brooks) are planning on marrying. There is one big problem, however....Barbara is annoying and rather dopey. Instead of focusing on her fiance, she consistently spends ALL her time and energy on her horse. It doesn't help that she also is very rich and very spoiled. In frustration, Denny makes Barbara a bet....if this racehorse cannot win, he gets to do what he wants with the horse. She makes the bet...the horse loses...and Denny gives away the horse to the Ritz Brothers. Now, Barbara is angry....after all, bets mean nothing to her and she stomps off and breaks her engagement. At this point, I was thoroughly convinced that although I usually hate the Ritz's, they weren't too bad and I thoroughly hated Barbara. Fortunately, despite this, the film turns out to be reasonably entertaining....and is CLEARLY better than the half dozen other Ritz films I've seen...mostly because the Ritz's aren't as annoying as usual and I spent so much time hating Barbara. Not exactly a glowing endorsement....so be it.

Straight, Place & Show was not one of the Ritz's better films for 20th Century Fox. Those were Life Begins in College, Kentucky Moonshine, Three Musketeers, as well as their outings with Alice Faye: On the Avenue and You Can't Have Everything. But Straight, Place & Show was acceptable despite the woefully low budget. The film editor and the director seem not to have talked to each other; the film looks choppy. The screenplay was adapted from a play written by Dmon Runyon (think Guys & Dolls) and Irving Caesar, but the only Runyonesque characters we meet are characters played by Sid Fields, Stanley Fields and Ben Weldon. Wiile Best is wasted.Even the Ritzes are cut down to two specialty numbers. But they do their best, as does Ethel Merman in crystalline voice. Phyllis Brooks tries to put life into her role. If it were not for the Ritz Brothers and Merman, I'd say pass on this film. But because of La Merman and Al, Jimmy & Harry Ritz, it is worth a look and will provide some chuckles. Yeah, yeah. You either love'em or hate 'em. But to call the Ritz Brothers untalented, as a previous reviewer did, is ridiculous. They were expert precision dancers and could sing as well as do physical and verbal comedy. By the 1940s many budding comedians (Jerry Lewis, Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks)were heavily influenced by the Ritz Brothers' zaniness.

Possibly the least talented "act" ever seen, The Ritz Brother infested many a 30s film. Here they star in an unfunny comedy as dopes who are given a race horse. Richard Arlen and Ethel Merman are trapped in this stupid comedy as are Phyllis Brooks, Ben Weldon, Sidney Fields, Willie Best, George Barbier, and Sidney Blackmer.

Ethel Merman looks great but sings two sub-par songs; Richard Arlen looks fat, and no one else cause of ripple of interest. The Ritz Brothers make the Three Stooges look like Olivier, Gielgud, and Richardson!

An oddity is that Ivan Lebedev, Raphael Storm, and Gregory Gaye appear as 3 Russian jockeys.... the three also appeared together as princes/suitors to Constance Bennett in Merrily We Live that same year. What was THAT about?

I'm not sure if I've seen a Ritz Brothers movie before this one. In terms of brother comedy acts they haven't stood the test of time like the Marx Brothers, perhaps because they lack distinctive personalities, but they have a lot of energy and know how to sell a joke.

The rest of the cast is fine. Ethel Merman is the standout of the bunch, but her character is little more than a character device devoted to either breaking the obligatory cute couple up or getting them back together. She has a couple of good songs, but seems to good to be a bit player in a low-budget comedy.

The film's biggest weakness is the script, which is just a mess. It centers around a relationship in peril because of the woman's love of her horse, and it can be remarkably inane. Besides Merman's poorly-defined character, there is a "bet" that makes no sense and a moment when the guy, who is portrayed as being a really swell fellow, considers doing something not-good to his girl's pet. The lack of character continuity is so notable that it feels like the characters were written by several different writers who didn't read any part of the script they didn't write.

But it's quite amusing all the same.